Broody Hen Thread!

[fisherlady]

My first time mamma hen is doing a great job with her little ones.

Adorable!! Love when they peek out. And wow!! What a comb on that little guy under her wing!

 

[daxigait]

Well at the moment we have 6 healthy little chicks. One more hatched over night but we were forced to move mom and chicks down to the 'nursery' coop. I was setting more food out for the oldest chicks when mom gave me a loud warning cluck and well, her bowels cut loose in the nest. No wonder, poor thing has been holding herself for almost 4 days. She still had three eggs she was sitting on with no signs of pips in them. They were being jostled around by her and the chicks so I figured we had nothing to loose by moving them also. The chicks are adorable. Three have Welsummer blood in them, three look pure Buff O. I feather sexed two as possible pullets. The youngest was too young and the other two didn't have enough pin feathers to tell anything by their wings. I moved the eggs with her, set one down at her breast and she tucked it under her. At this point I'm concerned about her still being glued to the nest. One of the eggs is probably infertile, the other two, who knows. 

Should I leave them till tomorrow and if they haven't hatched, pull them and put them in my 'bator until we are sure they are not going to hatch? The chicks are ready to be out and about with her. They are so cute. I put chick feed in the palm of my hand and immediately three climbed on to eat. Mom needs to be eating also. Her stool is loose at this point, I'm sure from stress. There is no sign of coccidia or blood. Just stinky loose broody poo.

But given the time of year, this being her first brood, 50% fertility the Welsummer eggs and on again, off again cold weather, I'm happy with 60-70% hatch rate.

Footnote. I just went out with chopped cooked egg to add to their chick feed and momma was off the nest with chicks in attendance. I gathered up the abandoned eggs and brought them in. Two were infertile. One was dark with a clearly defined air chamber and in the other I could see a little beak in the air chamber but no real movement in the embryo. They were cool to the touch but I still brought them in and placed them in the incubator. Not holding out much hope but 24 hours is all we have to invest to see if anything happens. On the bright side, Momma and babes are doing well. Momma has them sitting in sunlight that is coming in through the nursery window. The chicks are sitting in the sun dozing. When I just peeked in on them 4 of them had taken up residency in the low food bowl I put out for them along with their chick feeder. At one point the Buff O rooster came up and looked in the door. I told him he was a new father and that I'd bet real money that most of them were his. He actually looked at me, back at the window and then went about his business. Sometimes I wonder just how much they really do understand.

Congratulations on your hatch!

 

[Greg88]

Ethyl, one of my BO hens went broody last week and last night I put 6 Jubilee Orp eggs under her I got locally. She took to them just fine.
Since this is her first clutch I will put the other 6 eggs from the dozen in an incubator tonight (just borrowed from a friend today) and whatever from the collection hatches I will put under her once she demonstrates some semblance of taking care of the chicks.
The countdown is on!!!

 

[microchick]

RachelR32, what breed is she and her chicks? She has a beautiful head.

 

[RachaelR32]

RachelR32, what breed is she and her chicks? She has a beautiful head.

She was sold as a brahma. I think she's actually a bit of a mix as she's not like my other brahmas. The chicks are a barnyard mix from the guy up the road. 2 came from blue eggs, 4 from brown eggs, and the bantam from a white egg. The big ones may have a minorca for a dad.

 

[RachaelR32]

Adorable!! Love when they peek out. And wow!! What a comb on that little guy under her wing!

Yes! Only 5 weeks old and a massive comb. No doubt that ones a boy!

 

[CherriesBrood]

I currently have a Salmon Favorelle that has gone broody. She has gone broody once before, but quit. I have a shipment of 17 chicks coming tommorrow. I'm going to put some of those chicks under her that night, and see what she does. Hopefully all will work out well, she really really wants to be a mom.
The other time she went broody was when she was 6 months old, now she's 8 months old!

 

[fisherlady]

Below is a post from the 'old fashioned' broody thread from last February , I thought it may be helpful for some folks on this thread. Remember that this is just based on my experience in our coop with our flock dynamics, but I believe it may provide a good base for someone to begin evaluating their own situation with....



Quote:
Originally Posted by fisherlady

I agree with Lady of McCamley, it is very possible to do, but it totally hinges on the hen's mentality. Many hens are tricky about fostering... it isn't their fault, and it doesn't make them bad broodies, it is just a hormonal thing, this seems more pronounced when the hen is a newer broody (only one or two hatches). I have found my more experienced broodies seem much less phased by odd things

Remember that the natural progression of brooding is (from my observations)

a). Pre broody.... the hen's hormones are starting to act up, they tend to be vocal and grumpy, mine often walk around emitting a low 'clook, clook, clook' noise for a few days during this phase. This is also the time they start hogging a nest box during the day and gathering eggs when they can. They often still roost at night during this early phase, so it is easy to miss if you aren't around them for extended periods during this time. I have come to recognize these as an early warning sign.

b) Setting broody... the hen has committed to setting full time on the nest now, her hormones have fully kicked in and she wants eggs no matter what! She may still take in extras she can find so it is up to us to prevent that during the setting period. While setting she will instinctually turn the eggs multiple times a day and shuffle their position in the nest to what she feels is the best benefit to the eggs. During this time she will only leave the nest one or maybe two times a day (if even that often) during which time she will be the whirling dervish queen of speed scratching, dusting and drinking.

c) Hatching broody.... it seems that the last few days of a normal clutch the hen senses the increase in movement of the chicks in the egg and you will often hear her softly purring and clucking to the chicks. This period seems to help prepare her for the sudden appearance of the newly hatched chicks. Although a broody can't count the number of days she has been setting she does recognize the changes in the vibe from the eggs as hatch nears.

d) Mama broody.... usually this kicks in on day 2 after the hatch (give or take 24 hours) At this time the hen decides it is time to leave the nest and care for all of the little ones which are out and about. She will often give up on late eggs, sometimes even viable ones, because the instinct is to care for the already hatched, not hope for more. I re-purpose an old phrase to explain this..... 'a chick in the open is worth 2 in the shell' Some folks don't understand the importance to general survival that this is... and it is also the reason that staggered hatches are so dangerous to the hatching process.

I have encountered problems when messing with the normal progression of brooding, but the problems can be minimized and/or avoided when you understand that they are possible to begin with.

a) hens can't count days, but their hormone levels evidently do fluctuate and some hens just don't do well with being suddenly presented with chicks when they have only been in 'setting' mode for a short period. I had a hen who had been a great broody before when I gave her a group of eggs which were due to hatch only 10 days into her brood. She just didn't transit to hatch mode and the first two eggs which hatched she suffocated because she just was sitting too tight.... she just wasn't understanding that hatch time had kicked in. We removed the remaining eggs and gave them to another broody and we replaced them with fresh eggs to this hen. She happily sat on them for the 3 weeks and hatched 6/6 and was an awesome mama to them. Her failure to short hatch didn't mean she was a bad broody, her hormones just didn't adjust in time. I now normally wouldn't short hatch a hen with less than 2 weeks of brood time to avoid the possible problem.

b). some hens are great fosters but others can seem very confused when chicks suddenly appear without the 'hatch mode' preparation time. These hens aren't bad broodies, they just need a bit of time to transition to mama mode. These situations need very close monitoring to help lost chicks get back under the broody and also sometimes some chick protection, a confused hen may peck at a chick and hurt or scare it during introduction. Simply cupping the chick under your hand and sliding it under broody without her even seeing it or having the chance to peck at it can drastically reduce stress to both broody and chick. Broody will hopefully begin getting into the mama mode with just hearing the chick under her for the first 12-24 hours.

c) mixed foster method. This is my preferred and I have done well with it. A hen who has recently hatched (within past 2 days) will usually readily accept more chicks with very little fuss. Her natural hatchers have already helped her transition through the hatching mode to mama mode and hens can't count, so more chicks just appearing with her own seems to be pretty simply and acceptable to her. The only risk is if the new ones are a different color. Some hens do seem to show preference to their own if they are old enough that she was out of the nest with them. Some hens may reject an odd colored chick. So watch for that risk. If mama has 6 yellow fluff balls and you try sneaking in a black australorp chick she may object.

Now remember that these stages and situations are just some general observations in my coop, and their are exceptions to every rule... I have a hen who will have nothing to do with chicks which aren't hers (a rarity in our coop, but she is a character) and I have a couple of hens who will adopt anything that cheeps, even if it is a much older chick.... some hens will adopt chicks at the drop of a hat when they haven't even been broody or only broody for a short time. We are totally at the mercy of the hen's personality on this.

. Our faithful Janeway, with her own chicks (maybe a week old) and a group of almost 5 week olds she decided still needed a mama when their own broody went back up on the roost (see the little white head poking out from under her right side? that is one of the older group). Janeway kept that older group with her until her own were 6 weeks old, in fact, the older chicks abandoned her more so than the other way around, I think she would have kept them longer yet, even though they were nearly as big as her by the time they were 10 weeks old!

Moving this forward again as a reference

 

[fisherlady]

I currently have a Salmon Favorelle that has gone broody. She has gone broody once before, but quit. I have a shipment of 17 chicks coming tommorrow. I'm going to put some of those chicks under her that night, and see what she does. Hopefully all will work out well, she really really wants to be a mom.
The other time she went broody was when she was 6 months old, now she's 8 months old!

Her successful grafting depends on her personality, how long she's been broody and the willingness of the chicks also. I explain some of that more in my post above... many grafts which aren't ordinary can still work, but may take more people time and some interventions and assists to smooth the process.
Last year I had a 3 year old hen who never showed any interest in chicks suddenly decide she wanted to help raise the chicks of a flockmate, she didn't just play 'auntie' once in a while...she went all out broody monster and fed, protected and covered the chicks as if she'd spent 3 weeks hatching them. She stayed with them 24/7 and eventually took them over completely at 5 weeks when the real broody went back to the roost. Brownie kept those chicks till they were 10+ weeks old.
Just last week Brownie went broody again, but this time on a nest since there were no other recent hatches in the coop to steal, lol. She is now proudly sitting on her own clutch of Easter Egger eggs.

 

[microchick]

Thanks for the informative post fisherlady. I was worried how Aggie would handle reintroducing her two late hatching chicks but we dicided that for the sake of both the chicks and for ourselves, we would try to introduce them when it was late afternoon and still enough daylight that we could keep an eye on things. Aggie has been so singlbe minded with her desire to brood and is such a sweet natured hen that we really would have been surprised if she had been violent.

The smallest of the two and last hatched, was immediately accepted back. She carefully placed herself over the little chick and lowered herself down so it was lost in her fluff. The bigger of the two was almost as if it was getting chastized such as 'where have you been!' She gave his head a couple of nibbles, not pecks, more like she was pulling on down that was still sporting some egg goo, pushed him away with her beak and when he/she cried a little, she gathered the baby under her and that was the last of it.

I went out this morning and everyone was one big happy family.

I have to agree that the individual hen carries a lot of weight with fostering. If she doesn't want to do it she isn't going to do is so my best advice is, if you are going to attempt this, plan on sitting close by for a while to make sure nobody gets hurt or killed.

Hope it works out for you.