Broody Hen Thread!

[fisherlady]

Ok so I have a first time Silkie momma. She's not acting like the rest of my broodys. Her chicks hatched Tuesday and here it is thursday and she hasn't left the nest. What can I do to get her to tend to the chicks.

It isn't unusual for a hen to sit for 2 or 3 days after hatch... sometimes they take a bit to realize they need to shift gears. Try placing food and water nearby and encourage the babies out from under her, even pull a baby or two out and place them near the food dish and tap your finger on the food. Seeing them near food may get her up voluntarily, or if you are sure she has no eggs left under her you can (very carefully) lift her off of the nest and set her nearby, if nothing else it will give her a chance to stretch and broody poo and if the food and water are handy she may kick into broody mother mode and start calling the chicks to eat or drink. I wouldn't do much to interfere though until the end of day 2 or 3, the chicks are fine for that time frame.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Ok so I have a first time Silkie momma. She's not acting like the rest of my broodys. Her chicks hatched Tuesday and here it is thursday and she hasn't left the nest. What can I do to get her to tend to the chicks.

That's normal. Mom stays on the nest the first 2 days as the chicks dry and in case any late eggs hatch. Chicks don't need food or water the first 48 hours of life. Just place food and water close by so it is easy to get to (but not so it can be tipped into the nest).

You won't really see your chicks much until they are about 1 week of age (possibly 2 weeks if the weather is cold)...but usually mom has them up and scratching some by day 3 or 4, but the babies will still sleep a lot that first week.

Lady of McCamley

Oops...Fisherlady answered your question...didn't see it until after I posted.

 

[Phoenixxx]

Has anybody started eggs in an incubator while waiting for a broody, and then giving the already-started eggs to the chicken to finish?

I've been stockpiling eggs that I want to hatch but the never-ending winter is keeping my girls from going broody (others in my area are having the same problem). A friend is willing to loan me a 'bator but if any of my girls gets so inclined, I'd rather let her/them finish the work. I'm not very good at growing things, lol - just ask my houseplants!

 

[Alaskan]

Has anybody started eggs in an incubator while waiting for a broody, and then giving the already-started eggs to the chicken to finish?

I've been stockpiling eggs that I want to hatch but the never-ending winter is keeping my girls from going broody (others in my area are having the same problem). A friend is willing to loan me a 'bator but if any of my girls gets so inclined, I'd rather let her/them finish the work. I'm not very good at growing things, lol - just ask my houseplants!

From what I understand, people do that all of the time.

Actually, my broody, who should hopefully hatch out some chicks tomorrow, is sitting on shipped eggs that sat in the incubator fir the first week.

In the past, i have sat a broody on infertile eggs, and then after a few days, gone in and slid out the eggs one by one and slid shipped chicks under her, one by one. She was the best mama hen ever!

 

[fisherlady]

Has anybody started eggs in an incubator while waiting for a broody, and then giving the already-started eggs to the chicken to finish?

I've been stockpiling eggs that I want to hatch but the never-ending winter is keeping my girls from going broody (others in my area are having the same problem). A friend is willing to loan me a 'bator but if any of my girls gets so inclined, I'd rather let her/them finish the work. I'm not very good at growing things, lol - just ask my houseplants!

This is exactly what I am doing right now... though my circumstances were a bit different. I have had lots of broodies all spring, I had 2 hens go broody so headed to a breeder I know for hatching eggs... I was expecting a dozen and he gave me 2 dozen! One dozen is from a breed I have been wanting for a few years and his birds are just gorgeous... well, no way my girls were getting a dozen each, so I called on a friend to borrow his incubator...
We have never used an incubator, so DH and I did our best to get it set up right, then put some of the eggs in the incubator and split the rest between the two broody hens. Our plan was to candle on day 10, pull any clears under the broodies and replace them with developing eggs from the incubator. Then any chicks which hatch we planned to divide between the broodies on hatch day.

Well, low and behold we had a 3rd hen go broody the day we gave the other 2 their eggs... we gave her a couple of days to make absolutely sure she was going to stay the course and she has, so the plan is to candle eggs tomorrow evening and give her the ones out of the incubator and let her do her thing.

We love our broodies, but Heckle (hen #3 above) is our 9th one this year, so we are hoping this is it for a while!

 

[Phoenixxx]

Awesome, good to know! I was just wondering if it might mess with their instincts, having, say, chicks hatching in a week and mama thinkin "wait a minute, this isn't right..."

 

[fisherlady]

Awesome, good to know! I was just wondering if it might mess with their instincts, having, say, chicks hatching in a week and mama thinkin "wait a minute, this isn't right..."

I would let a hen be broody for at least a week before trying to provide her with hatched chicks, I have heard of folks having trouble with newly broody hens being confused... but at this point it is only hearsay for me, since I haven't had that experience personally.

Hopefully someone else can pipe in for time frame advice...

on a newly broody hen my try would be to give her one newly hatched from the incubator and see how she does with it, if she is OK with it then give her the rest... or if eggs, watch how she acts to the first hatched and be prepared to pull them if she shows signs of rejecting them or freaking about the hatch. Just keep the incubator ready to put the eggs or new hatchlings back into it if needed.

 

[Alaskan]

The one time I gave a broody shipped chicks, I had her sitting on eggs for maybe three days before swapping out the eggs for chicks.

She was clearly the best broody ever, so might not have been typical.

 

[fiddlebanshee]

I have given up on my broodies. They were supposed to hatch this weekend but I needed to go out of town. So I moved them three feet to another nestbox that I thought had cordoned off, and they had feed and water. Then when I got to my destination yesterday, my husband informs me that the broodies had managed to get out and were sitting on newly laid eggs. The incubated eggs were cold.

I throw up my hands in despair. I will put some of my eggs in the bator on Sunday.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Has anybody started eggs in an incubator while waiting for a broody, and then giving the already-started eggs to the chicken to finish?

I've been stockpiling eggs that I want to hatch but the never-ending winter is keeping my girls from going broody (others in my area are having the same problem). A friend is willing to loan me a 'bator but if any of my girls gets so inclined, I'd rather let her/them finish the work. I'm not very good at growing things, lol - just ask my houseplants!

From what I understand, people do that all of the time.

Actually, my broody, who should hopefully

hatch out some chicks tomorrow, is sitting on shipped eggs that sat in the incubator fir the first week.

In the past, i have sat a broody on infertile eggs, and then after a few days, gone in and slid out the eggs one by one and slid shipped chicks under her, one by one. She was the best mama hen ever!

This is exactly what I am doing right now... though my circumstances were a bit different. I have had lots of broodies all spring, I had 2 hens go broody so headed to a breeder I know for hatching eggs... I was expecting a dozen and he gave me 2 dozen! One dozen is from a breed I have been wanting for a few years and his birds are just gorgeous... well, no way my girls were getting a dozen each, so I called on a friend to borrow his incubator...
We have never used an incubator, so DH and I did our best to get it set up right, then put some of the eggs in the incubator and split the rest between the two broody hens. Our plan was to candle on day 10, pull any clears under the broodies and replace them with developing eggs from the incubator. Then any chicks which hatch we planned to divide between the broodies on hatch day.

Well, low and behold we had a 3rd hen go broody the day we gave the other 2 their eggs... we gave her a couple of days to make absolutely sure she was going to stay the course and she has, so the plan is to candle eggs tomorrow evening and give her the ones out of the incubator and let her do her thing.

We love our broodies, but Heckle (hen #3 above) is our 9th one this year, so we are hoping this is it for a while!

x 4
I am now attempting to do just that right now....swap/juggle projects between 2 or 3 broodies and 2 mini-incubators I used with the kids when we did a 4H project (since I'm too cheap to buy a decent incubator as I like the "ease" of brooding with hens).

I'm actually banking on my partial failure based on the typical 50% hatch rate for shipped eggs and incubators...or I am going to have a lot of chicks to figure out what to do with.

So it is something many of us do/attempt to do.

If interested in my current story of what I'm attempting to do....

I started 6 Rhodebar eggs 2 weeks ago split between a first time broody Ms. Marvel (Wyandotte/EE or OEG...my avatar) and my faithful Silkie.

Originally I planned and had an pre-arrangement for Buckeye eggs, but it didn't look like they would be coming at all this season (the breeder was having fertility problems with her Buckeye hatching eggs). I had originally planned to use my faithful Silkie...but she was lingering and not going into a good brood (just teasing me) after having brooded 3 batches (poor girl, who could blame her for taking a bit of vacation time).

However, Ms. Marvel had been showing extreme hormonal broody behavior and was clogging up the main coop and picking fights when dominant hens booted her out, so I moved her to the broody hutch to see if she would settle on a new nest AND be happy...in short she was driving me and the flock nuts.

I hunted around and became intrigued with Rhodebars, so I purchased 6 hatching eggs to start the "refresh" of my flock for this season's brooding hoping to use my Silkie, but contemplating using Ms. Marvel. I ended up giving her just 3 and giving my faithful Silkie 3 as the Silkie had just that day of pick up acted like she would go into a good brood after teasing me for a week, I figured if the Silkie didn't settle I would risk all 6 on Ms. Marvel...but only purchased a total of 6 eggs in case newbie Ms. Marvel quit on me and I had to put all the eggs under the faithful Silkie.

Well, they were both sitting just fine, and I unexpectedly got a lead on my hard to find Buckeye eggs again (which I really wanted this year) so I took a chance it would all work out and went ahead and ordered my Buckeye eggs...which of course took longer to ship than I originally planned...I finally got 16 eggs this Tuesday....Silkie I am sure will stay on a prolonged brood, but she is a small banty, so she got the best 6 Buckeyes (determined by candling to check for solid yolks and attached air cells with good shells)...I then put all 6 of the Rhodebars (at what looks to be all at 2 week development) under Ms. Marvel, my newbie, so she can finish them out as she'd already been on a hormonal brood a couple of weeks before I trusted her with any eggs...so she'll hatch in 1 week. Since she is a first time hen, I'm not willing to risk trying to extend her brood even though she could cover all of the Buckeye eggs.

So then I ask myself, what to do with the rest of those expensive eggs that are sitting on my counter now? (Dozen bought, 16 shipped, 1 cracked, 5 problematic, leaving 10 looking good for hatching). Well, the same day as I placed eggs with the Silkie, I put 4 of the next best Buckeye eggs in my 2 mini-incubators (maximum 3 eggs each) that I've used with moderate success (50% hatch rate)...the idea being since they are shipped eggs, only about 50% will develop because of shipping...and I'll be lucky if 50% develop in those mini-incubators...so if the Silkie's 6 have a 50% rate, since Silkie can only really handle 6 full size eggs well, I will see which ones are developing and place those best 6 under the Silkie for finishing. That's the plan anyway.

However, if to my chagrin, I get lucky and all 10 develop, then I'm hoping another hen will settle into a good brood soon so the 4 in the incubator will go under a hen to hatch...otherwise I will end up having to attempt a staggered graft with fosters....I doubt my Silkie can handle 10 chicks

(not likely)...or seeing if Ms. Marvel is tolerant enough to handle mixed ages as a newbie (weather will be warmer, but that would be quite an age difference...Hmmm doubtful on that one). This could get interesting....my husband will NOT be thrilled at brooding chicks in the garage again (it creates way too much dust for his nice motorcyle).

Being the scrooge that I am, I'll also recheck the last 5 shipped eggs which were my "problem" eggs that had detached air cells to see if they finally settled and put them under a broody hen (if not, they are in the trash as they will have sat 2 weeks without any brooding).

All to say...the hen doesn't know the difference, and you can swap eggs in an out, often even chicks (with some fostering techniques)...how successfully depends on how good you are with an incubator (I'm not holding my breath on that one as I'm not great) and how tolerant the hen is

.

I do find that if I have a hen sit for at least a week she bonds better with the hatched/fosters...her hormones have really kicked in well. She may mother well, but I find they mother better after the hormones have settled longer.

Lady of McCamley