Broody Hen Thread!

[chicken farmer]

My Buff orpington gets broody every so often so once I put 6 eggs under her and most of them ended up cracked. In the end there were two chicken eggs and a duck egg left which never hatched and were starting to smell bad so I cracked each of them and found little baby chicks in them that were never fully developed!

Butter the broody hen.


This is a bit disturbing but it's one of the unhatched eggs that contained a little black chick.

Sorry about Butters chicks hopefully the next clutch will be better!

 

[Lady of McCamley]

thanks tomorrow i will clean alot should i clean the eggs the smell is unbearavle tho but for some strange reson my silkie has got no gunk of anything on her its kind of dried in tho ooo i hope they hatch.

Wow...that's a tough one due to the fact that you are SO close to hatch date. Generally you do not want to touch and handle eggs or the broody much, especially at day 19 because you can interfere with the hatching process those last couple of days. At least that's what I've been told.

I too was close to hatch, and I have over handled a broody before and caused her to abandon the project, so I am leery of being over aggressive again. I had my daughter hold the broody, then I gently dry paper toweled off the good eggs (which mostly were okay clean) and pulled out the bad eggs and soiled nesting material (which is where most of the smell was coming from). I then filled in with good nesting material, replaced the eggs, replaced the hen, spending as little time as possible and little disruption as possible. I did not attempt to clean the bird up (she actually amazingly didn't look that bad).

Anyway, my 2 cents and personal experience.

Good Luck. Post what you do, how it went, and what hatches. I'd like to learn from your experience as well.
Lady of McCamley

 

[sharol]

I had to literally move my broody, her one hatched chick, and remaining eggs because another hen was trying to attack her and her baby. She threw a holy fit, but as soon as I had her in the new spot with her eggs and her chick, she settled right in.

It probably helped that the new coop was familiar to her (she was raised in it until she was about 12 weeks old), but she didn't show any desire to abandon her baby or the nest. I just was grateful that I had been there when Scout attacked her, or the baby might not have survived (and it is adorable at about 2 1/2 weeks old.) Of the 5 eggs, 4 hatched (one baby died shortly after hatch, not sure what happened, but it was having trouble getting out of the shell) and one was a quitter.

Yesterday after I put the rest of the flock back in their run, I let her out of her hoop run with the babies. It was REALLY cute with those little ones following her around. One was braver than the rest and kept wandering off, but it came back when she called it.

Later I checked into the coop part of her area, and she had somehow moved all 3 babies and herself into a nest box that is about 1 1/2 feet off the floor of the coop. I have no idea how she got them up there, but by bedtime, they were all settled back on the floor.

I'm rambling. My point is that sometimes broodies stick if you have to move them. It just depends on the broody. Marlena is a wonderful mother, and I'll let her hatch eggs again if she goes broody. She is 2 years old and this is her first broody spell. Next time, I'll move her to the hoop earlier, though.

 

[Buffrington]

I have done it in the past and the hen accepted them although it will all depend on the hen. Make sure the chicks are very young because if they are too old they may not listen to the mother hen. Try to put them under her at night if you can.

So I got two one week old PK's and placed them with the hen, she pecked them once or twice, and now they are comfy inside her feathers and not making a peeping sound. I will keep an eye out on the behavior tomorrow morning. If I see that she is not looking after them, I will

Thanks

 

[hayleyschickens]

Two of my hens are broody now, and one hen hatched a total of one out if fifteen, and the other ones are moving around inside , but they're taking and long time!! :/ my other broody hen still has another week to go!!

 

[jammyjammy2112]

Wow...that's a tough one due to the fact that you are SO close to hatch date. Generally you do not want to touch and handle eggs or the broody much, especially at day 19 because you can interfere with the hatching process those last couple of days. At least that's what I've been told.

I too was close to hatch, and I have over handled a broody before and caused her to abandon the project, so I am leery of being over aggressive again. I had my daughter hold the broody, then I gently dry paper toweled off the good eggs (which mostly were okay clean) and pulled out the bad eggs and soiled nesting material (which is where most of the smell was coming from). I then filled in with good nesting material, replaced the eggs, replaced the hen, spending as little time as possible and little disruption as possible. I did not attempt to clean the bird up (she actually amazingly didn't look that bad).

Anyway, my 2 cents and personal experience.

Good Luck. Post what you do, how it went, and what hatches. I'd like to learn from your experience as well.
Lady of McCamley

thanks everbody but this morning i went into the choop it was about 12 o clock i went to the broody's house and lifted her up i had my cleaning stuff with me then amazinglinly everthing was clean all the egs and all the straw everything she wasn't dirty everything was spotless she (silkie) had cleaned everything and then i looked closly and one was piped its only day 19 and the first week the weather was extremly hot for Ireland it got up to 30 most days

 

[sharol]

That is awesome. She obviously knows what she is doing. My Marlena had one hatch at 19 days and one at 20. the other six that I had in an incubator hatched on day 24. Hmmm. Must be a lesson in there somewhere.

thanks everbody but this morning i went into the choop it was about 12 o clock i went to the broody's house and lifted her up i had my cleaning stuff with me then amazinglinly everthing was clean all the egs and all the straw everything she wasn't dirty everything was spotless she (silkie) had cleaned everything and then i looked closly and one was piped its only day 19 and the first week the weather was extremly hot for Ireland it got up to 30 most days

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

My broody girl is doing awesome. Chicks are ~3 weeks old. Originally I had Oleo, the Cochin, with the chicks, but she got stressed and started breaking their wing feathers, so I put Lyka, the Serema, in with them, and she's just a fantastic mother. She has a blood lust streak, too, anytime something besides a human comes close to them, she goes into a killing frenzy. Very funny since she doesn't even weigh a pound. Def. will be doing this pairing again, Oleo loves hatching chicks but not so much raising them (this was the first time she stuck with the kids, I think because Lyka brooded with her and she stayed). Lyka is so so at hatching, but is a great mom (mostly cause she's too little to fit anything under, lol)

 

[Lady of McCamley]

thanks everbody but this morning i went into the choop it was about 12 o clock i went to the broody's house and lifted her up i had my cleaning stuff with me then amazinglinly everthing was clean all the egs and all the straw everything she wasn't dirty everything was spotless she (silkie) had cleaned everything and then i looked closly and one was piped its only day 19 and the first week the weather was extremly hot for Ireland it got up to 30 most days

I am SO happy to hear that!

Silkies are amazing. They really know how to mother.

My experience as well has been the babies pip on 19 and hatch on day 20 under a broody hen...and I've read others have experienced that consistently as well.

Providential Nature does a better job as a whole than too much human interference.

Post photos of your hatchlings when they dry out

 

[jammyjammy2112]

this silkie is the best she was caring for her last brood til they where 9 weeks old then they kindove went away from her they mostly slept in the nest box bt sometimes on the cirp with the big girls and daddy once they where 6 weeks and they even slept under daddy i was amazed when i saw that but i moved mom over to dad dad is a silkie aswell they are the only silkies i have

Her first hatch was last year when a man asked could he use her to hatch some endangered pheasants and release them she hatched 6 peasant chicks but she was in with another broody hen that the man had and it killed 3 chicks she raised 3 peasants and they where released now this is her 3rd hatch all hatched on day 21 except this one.