Broody Hen Thread!

[Alaskan]

After all the ups and downs with my incubators and convincing my dear wife to go along since we don't have a broody hen, now I have an Australorp who has just gone broody as of yesterday. She has been sounding broody for almost a month now, but she finally sat on the nest all day yesterday as well as overnight. However, she was kicked out by the Alpha hen in the morning because all of them like to lay in that one spot. When I went back to take a look, there were 5 eggs including hers so she laid one too.

Shall I wait and see till she stops laying? Also can I try giving her my 2 & 1/2 week old chicks or is it too late for that? She is my fluffiest hen with a beautiful black/green sheen on her, I would hate not to have her walk around with chicks but can't bear the wrath of my dear wife.

Anyone have experience with broody hen being able to take care of their chicks with the rest of the flock (especially when there is no rooster around to defend her)? She is 3rd in the pecking order of 5. However top 2 can be vicious when they were work in unison. They are siblings and were raised together (mostly in our laps).
I will only have her hatch chicks if she can take care of them herself. No more chicks inside the home after I am done with this batch.

Also, if I do let her hatch chicks, what breeds should I go for? I currently have:

2 Red Stars, 1 Australorp (the broody one), 1 RIR (could be a production red) and one Leghorn/Wyandotte/Bantam mix.

Then 4 x 4 Light Brahmas that just turned 4 weeks
V
and 3 x Cream Legbars that are 2.5 weeks

I went for the Brahmas just because they look good and the Legbars for their guaranteed blue eggs compared to Easter Eggers who are all over the place. And honestly I am not so fond of their ear muffs & beards.

Anyways would appreciate your input.

P.S. My Australorp seems like can take 14-16 eggs easily. Is that too many eggs to get adequate warmth from "mommy"?

I have given a broody mail order chicks, but only after she was sitting tightly for a week. I wouldn't want to try giving her chicks earlier than that. Also, it would go more smoothly, if you could stick her in a large dog crate, or something similar. You could try it out for a few days, see if being by herself makes her be firmly broody. Giving her fake eggs to sit on would be easiest. Then, you could try taking out the eggs and swapping them for the three week old chicks. Just sit and watch, see how it goes. Maybe it will work, maybe not. If she did accept them, I would keep them together in that large dog crate for two days or so to make sure they were all bonded together. It might be hard for the older chicks to learn to follow her instructions. It would be a fun experiment to try. Anyway, if the chicks got along well with the broody, you could then try putting them with the main flock. No way to know if it will work until you try. It is important to watch for awhile. My experiment of "musical chicks" (swapping out chicks every four hours so none would get frozen in my very cold weather) worked well EXCEPT that I forgot that hens are not color blind! She said that none of the "oddly colored ones" would be accepted, but she didn't care that her four chicks turned into 13. So, at least I got 13 chicks out of the house........

 

[Alaskan]

@Junibutt i forgot to say, if you decide to have her hatch eggs, it doesn't matter at all to her what you give her to hatch out. You could even give her duck eggs.

As to number of eggs.....I have no idea. When she is sitting on the nest, see how many you can stuff under her with her able to fully cover then all, then subtract two just to be safe.

 

[griggy]

What a wonderful story and the hens words sound about right

Good luck with your hatch. I have a broody sitting on day 21/22 and she has 1 chick hatched, 1 which should be ready to zip and the other 4 nothing. I am really hoping that by this time tomorrow there is a lot more movement and hatching going on. This is her first time broodying and my first time with a broody so I guess we are learning together, I just hope the remainder hatch.

I am on day 20 with my first broody. I'm really concerned about this hatch. I was cleaning out her pen and saw two eggs that she had pushed out, and maybe a third. I though she had 5 eggs underneath, but really she has a total of 6 out of the original 12. I did an "eggtopsy" of the two she had kicked out and there was an embryo in each one, so I'm really hoping they weren't the ones I saw moving earlier. This is really stressing me out! I will be so sad if she doesn't get a chick!!

 

[GuineaFowling]

Well the other eggs are definitely going to hatch in a couple of days but now she is getting up to feed the first keet. I don't want her to only have one keet as it will have a less chance of surviving (and she would be heartbroken if it died since she waited so long for them to hatch) since guinea mommas are terrible at mothering and normally she loses about five keet out of 20 from accidentally stepping on them. I have put food in the nest box near her so she may feed it whilst setting on the other unhatched eggs but she keeps coming out. I don't have a broody hen to put the eggs under and my incubator is broken. What to do, What to do? How do I convince her to get back on them. Any advise would be appreciated thank you.

 

[Alaskan]

Well the other eggs are definitely going to hatch in a couple of days but now she is getting up to feed the first keet. I don't want her to only have one keet as it will have a less chance of surviving (and she would be heartbroken if it died since she waited so long for them to hatch) since guinea mommas are terrible at mothering and normally she loses about five keet out of 20 from accidentally stepping on them. I have put food in the nest box near her so she may feed it whilst setting on the other unhatched eggs but she keeps coming out. I don't have a broody hen to put the eggs under and my incubator is broken. What to do, What to do? How do I convince her to get back on them. Any advise would be appreciated thank you.

the only thing that I can think of is steal the one hatched keet, and brood it in the house until the others hatch. Once all eggs have hatched, you can try to sneak the keet back under her.

 

[griggy]

Day 20 5 pm...nothing going on! Wondering if anyone noticed a pattern in terms of when you set the eggs (time of day) as to when they hatch?

 

[Dumb Kluck]

I have my first broody, the last one I would have expected it from no less! Just about 2 dozen eggs into her laying career she decided to melt into a nest on the floor of the run and refuses to leave. I tried to move her & the eggs to a box in the hen house but she squawked non-stop until I returned them to her chosen spot :/
I'd been bringing her eggs the last couple days, just to confirm her broodiness... she would chatter & fluff, I'd set an egg down a few inches from her & she would move it under her right away. Even the ceramic egg was adopted without hesitation! Unfortunately I had to give up my roo a few weeks back so we have no fertile eggs, AKA: Chicken Seeds

So I met up with another poultry person from a local group and bought a mixed lot of 10 chicken seeds! Some speckled Sussex, Wyandotte, and Rhode Island Reds! Poor lil' hen barely fits all those eggs underneath her! When I went out with them she was all in a dither, but once she saw the eggs she lifted slightly so I could slip eggs under one end while she rolled them under the from other LOL. I suspect she will be a good mom.
Good thing our run is fairly secure, but what will I do when the babies hatch? They need to be separate from the rest of the adults until they are big enough to peck back! Is it possible that I'll have more luck moving her & her new clutch a little later on, or should I just try to cordon off the zone she's adopted?

 

[griggy]

AHHHHH!! I just did my 8 pm check on Abby and I could swear something is going on! The other chickens are in bed, so it is pretty quiet outside and if I stick my head near Abby, I can hear a noise, almost like a thump every so often. A lot of the times this happened, Abby started making a low clucking noise.
We might have an egg hatching!

 

[luvmypets]

Yay

 

[Junibutt]

I have given a broody mail order chicks, but only after she was sitting tightly for a week. I wouldn't want to try giving her chicks earlier than that.

Also, it would go more smoothly, if you could stick her in a large dog crate, or something similar. You could try it out for a few days, see if being by herself makes her be firmly broody. Giving her fake eggs to sit on would be easiest. Then, you could try taking out the eggs and swapping them for the three week old chicks. Just sit and watch, see how it goes. Maybe it will work, maybe not. If she did accept them, I would keep them together in that large dog crate for two days or so to make sure they were all bonded together. It might be hard for the older chicks to learn to follow her instructions. It would be a fun experiment to try.

Anyway, if the chicks got along well with the broody, you could then try putting them with the main flock. No way to know if it will work until you try. It is important to watch for awhile.

My experiment of "musical chicks" (swapping out chicks every four hours so none would get frozen in my very cold weather) worked well EXCEPT that I forgot that hens are not color blind!

She said that none of the "oddly colored ones" would be accepted, but she didn't care that her four chicks turned into 13. So, at least I got 13 chicks out of the house........

She is firmly broody now but still laid an egg today. Did not get off the nest or others' eggs all night and all day today. For the first time she growled at me when I tried to get the eggs from under-neath her. All good signs, but just don't know how to convince my wife.