Broody Hen Thread!

[sonderah]

I just got my 1st D'uccles Saturday, & I'm in love! Now I wish I could find some eggs to give my broody, BUT!! My broody's raise the babies with the flock. So would it be safe to give an EE D'uccle eggs to raise with a flock of EE's? The D'uccles are soooo small. :/

 

[redpennies15]

Question: at a Nutrena workshop we learned that many breeds of chickens have had the "broody trait" bred out if them to prevent sitting on unfertilized eggs. Seems mostly true for my girls...only one out if 15 gold sex links have sat on eggs (she hatched half).

So, is it true that this trait has been bred out if them?

 

[SD Bird Lady]

@redpennies15
this is very true. Even more so with the production bred breeds. If they sit they don't lay and that makes them very unprofitable for most situations.

 

[Manningjw]

Question: at a Nutrena workshop we learned that many breeds of chickens have had the "broody trait" bred out if them to prevent sitting on unfertilized eggs. Seems mostly true for my girls...only one out if 15 gold sex links have sat on eggs (she hatched half).

So, is it true that this trait has been bred out if them?

This is often even done without it being intended as well. If you think about a commercial chick business where eggs are incubated artificially and NEVER hatched naturally, those hens with the least brooding instinct will have far more off spring because they are not taking several months off of laying each year to try to brood. Eggs are simply collected and placed in an incubator and those hens without broodiness are more likely to pass on their genetics.

I actually have a strange little chicken that came from highly productive/commercial strains of chickens but for some reason is an incredibly broody hen. She broods several times a year starting at less than 6 months old.

 

[philipchickymad]

I have a Rhode Island Red and an austrolorp who r both broody now how do I make them stop we hv had a lot of broody hens so far this year and we have hatched enough chicks ?!?!?!

 

[sonderah]

Moved my broody last night, & now she won't sit in the nest! I ordered eggs for her yesterday that'll be here next week. Got her locked in a XL dog crate right now with food and water and a nest box full of fake eggs. Hoping she will give in and set there!! Any chance it'll work? Never tried to move one before, but I'm afraid the coop she's in doesn't have enough ventilation to be in 24/7.

 

[StarMeKritten]

My little broody finally hatched all of her chicks. She was hesitant to get off her eggs after the first one of two eggs hatched last week. When I removed the second egg, she had several more under her which I had assumed were not fertile. Surprise! 3 of her eggs had almost fully developed chicks in them. She had escaped for a brief period one afternoon, but I thought it was more recent than it was... and I didn't know that one of my LF boys had gotten to her. I did the math and figured out when her little escape occurred and it was not coincidentally exactly 3 weeks before the first of those 3 eggs hatched. The second hatched the day after and the third egg the day after that. My little momma is very happy with her 4 chicks! Her friend in the same pen has been terrific too, showing the little ones food and water while momma sat on the nest. They continue to share the mom duties and all pile up together to sleep. They are so sweet and I'm looking forward to watching the little guys grow up.

 

[fisherlady]

I have a Rhode Island Red and an austrolorp who r both broody now how do I make them stop we hv had a lot of broody hens so far this year and we have hatched enough chicks ?!?!?!

do a search in the block above for 'how to break a broody'.... it is a frequently covered subject and there are many methods, not every method works for every hen and you may have to try a couple to get one that works. The subject has been covered in this thread at least 2 or 3 times in the past 4-6 weeks, if you do a search this thread' (from the choices below the last thread entry) for 'breaking a broody' you should get your answer.

Moved my broody last night, & now she won't sit in the nest! I ordered eggs for her yesterday that'll be here next week. Got her locked in a XL dog crate right now with food and water and a nest box full of fake eggs. Hoping she will give in and set there!! Any chance it'll work? Never tried to move one before, but I'm afraid the coop she's in doesn't have enough ventilation to be in 24/7.

Try covering the cage about 2/3 of the way with a dark sheet. It will block her view of much of the outside world and will make it seems darker and cozier. Often this can help calm a broody back into setting. Try to leave the 1/3 uncovered portion (for ventilation) in an area of the cage that won't provide her much of a view and certainly not a view that includes a high activity area or a previous nesting area.

My little broody finally hatched all of her chicks. She was hesitant to get off her eggs after the first one of two eggs hatched last week. When I removed the second egg, she had several more under her which I had assumed were not fertile. Surprise! 3 of her eggs had almost fully developed chicks in them. She had escaped for a brief period one afternoon, but I thought it was more recent than it was... and I didn't know that one of my LF boys had gotten to her. I did the math and figured out when her little escape occurred and it was not coincidentally exactly 3 weeks before the first of those 3 eggs hatched. The second hatched the day after and the third egg the day after that. My little momma is very happy with her 4 chicks! Her friend in the same pen has been terrific too, showing the little ones food and water while momma sat on the nest. They continue to share the mom duties and all pile up together to sleep. They are so sweet and I'm looking forward to watching the little guys grow up.

Hens can have fertilized eggs for 3 to 4 weeks after their last exposure to a rooster. So even if you removed a hen from any rooster contact on the first of the month you may still have eggs laid by that hen on the 25th of the month which were fertilized by that rooster. To ensure clean genetic matings people will keep a hen isolated from all roosters except their preferred mate for her for a month before they will begin to collect hatching eggs and be able to be certain that the intended rooster is indeed the daddy.

I believe this was a 'fail safe' design of Mother Nature to ensure that even if a flock's rooster was killed unexpectedly the hens could still provide fertile eggs for a short while to repopulate the flock and even hatch out a son of the dead rooster to eventually take his place.

 

[StarMeKritten]

Hens can have fertilized eggs for 3 to 4 weeks after their last exposure to a rooster. So even if you removed a hen from any rooster contact on the first of the month you may still have eggs laid by that hen on the 25th of the month which were fertilized by that rooster. To ensure clean genetic matings people will keep a hen isolated from all roosters except their preferred mate for her for a month before they will begin to collect hatching eggs and be able to be certain that the intended rooster is indeed the daddy.

I believe this was a 'fail safe' design of Mother Nature to ensure that even if a flock's rooster was killed unexpectedly the hens could still provide fertile eggs for a short while to repopulate the flock and even hatch out a son of the dead rooster to eventually take his place.

Thanks for the information! I've had these girls for a couple months now and they have not been kept with my roosters in that time. I incubated the eggs that they laid the first week or so that I had them, hoping that they would be fertile, but they were not. I've gone over all the other options in my mind, but the only thing that I've come up with is that she must've had a run in with my free range rooster that one day that she got out to explore. I guess I'll just have to see what they look like as they get older.

ETA: The roosters that they were kept with before I got them were seramas. It should be pretty obvious as they grow if daddy was one of the seramas or my buff orp.

 

[Ramblin Rooster]

I had to break my 2nd broody who I didn't have chicks or eggs for.

Feel bad for her but don't want her sitting on infertile eggs forever and getting unhealthy.