Broody Hen Thread!

[promiseacres]

Thanks. Moved them out of the nest box and put a pizza box down with nesting material. Benny (mama hen) stayed on the last egg til last night but not this am. Its day 22 so its ok....may see what happened Bc I am curios. One more question I have other eggs from the same batch in the incubator and they began pipping today (day 20) my plan was to intergrate them to mom once they are dry....any tips or thoughts on doing this? I plan on kepping them in the brooded for at least a week. Thanks

 

[Emcrowston]

Hi elliechooks. I thought it was loo late up here in Derbyshire, but I had a white star go broodie, she is due to hatch on tuesday. I put 9 Appenzeller eggs under her and she only has 8 now, no snakes here! Lol. She has eaten one of them, clean gone except a bit of egg yolk on her neck! Good luck with your broodie whatever you decide to do.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Yep, she's broody again. I have some eggs that have been in the incubator 10 days, I think I will let her sit on whatever she has under her now, then give her these chicks if they hatch. If not I will still have plenty of time to find her either some day old chicks or some more fertile eggs (my boys may even have stepped up to thr mark by then, they are 16 and 20 weeks old but still no crowing or bullseyes in my girls eggs!)

Oh how fun....

Here's a thought for you....you could put those 10 day old eggs under her. I read an article where this one guy would put eggs under his broody and about 2 weeks later eggs in the bator, then he would take the eggs out from the broody at day 17 to the incubator to hatch and put the 2nd batch of 1 week old eggs under the hen to hatch. It meant less work for him and double the eggs being hatched as she was doing 2/3 of the work.

I also find I have much better success and healthier chicks in colder weather if the hen has hatched the chicks. My broody Silkie hatched 3 out of 5 eggs in cold, cold February (we're rainy Oregon so no snow but average day temp was a very wet 39 F and low temp just above freezing.) But I wanted more so I got a couple of feed store day old chicks and added them to the broody with the day old hatched chicks. Momma was a loving and accepting momma to all. The hatchlings thrived in the cold with the broody but I lost all of my fosters after 3 unsuccessful attempts over the next week and half.

After contemplating why it failed, I came to the conclusion the heat-bator foster chicks need time to adjust to the elements AND to looking to (and obeying) the big scary hen for warmth and comfort. If it is cold, they can succumb to the elements before they get adjusted. If you do add chicks from incubator to your broody to foster, it is good idea to add a heat lamp in a corner while they adjust if you can or desire...I don't do heat lamps in coops anymore as I burned a coop to the ground to campfire ashes...and almost set off my whole property that way...which is why I kept attempting fostering until I learned how to do it so it worked for me.

This September, when my Silkie went broody again, I attempted fostering again to see how it went in warmer weather and watched very closely. I saw that my hen will sit and spread her wings clucking to them to come, hatchlings run right under, but fosters take a little bit to learn to obey and run to the big scary hen and will linger a bit before getting so cold they finally lay down beside her and then tuck under...it is that transition time in cold weather that I think is too much of a shock. With warmer weather, their systems weren't so jolted that it gave them time to adjust and I had a successful foster situation..after a week, they were running around in the cold snap we had last week just like they were hatchlings....it amazes me...when I first heat lamp brooded chicks I watched their temps so closely raising up the lamp carefully each week, and then they took awhile to acclimate to the cold weather outside, so I carefully transitioned them outside....with a broody hen and her hatch...she has them running around in the yard in sub temperatures within a week....and they are THRIVING! It is amazing. She literally clucks and tells them to come in for a nap and lays right down in the yard with them...or they run up onto her back and tuck into her wings and she lays down with them. They feather much faster, grow bigger, and lay sooner.

Who'd a thunk nature's design had this figured out.

Sorry for rambling on ...but wanted to share my experiences with fostering in colder weather as you mentioned your weather was colder with your broody this time.

Good luck!
Lady of McCamley

 

[elliechooks]

Thank you Lady McCamley. I could put the eggs under her and then think of plan b if they do not hatch I suppose. I am worried about these eggs as there are only 6 and they were shipped. 3 definitely had floating air cells on arrival, the other 3 I couldn't see air cells at all, but they are maran eggs. I can not see any veining but the shadows do look darker, or maybe it's wishful thinking!

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Thank you Lady McCamley. I could put the eggs under her and then think of plan b if they do not hatch I suppose. I am worried about these eggs as there are only 6 and they were shipped. 3 definitely had floating air cells on arrival, the other 3 I couldn't see air cells at all, but they are maran eggs. I can not see any veining but the shadows do look darker, or maybe it's wishful thinking!

50% hatch is typical with shipped eggs.
Maran eggs...that's my next project....spring tho right???

Good luck with the hatch however you do it.
Lady of McCamley

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Thanks. Moved them out of the nest box and put a pizza box down with nesting material. Benny (mama hen) stayed on the last egg til last night but not this am. Its day 22 so its ok....may see what happened Bc I am curios. One more question I have other eggs from the same batch in the incubator and they began pipping today (day 20) my plan was to intergrate them to mom once they are dry....any tips or thoughts on doing this? I plan on kepping them in the brooded for at least a week. Thanks

Although many report just plunking chicks of varying ages with the hen and her chicks with no problems (and I applaud their success), fostering has proven trickier for me. My personal opinion is that it depends on the hen and chicks (fosters and hatchlings) and environmental conditions. I don't think there is one tried and true answer.

I personally would consider placing them as soon as they are stable from hatching, providing mom is accepting and the weather isn't too cold....I have found a 3 day delay in chick age generally the maximum ideal for integration as mom will shift gears into teaching the older ones to scratch and be a chicken vs. sitting and tending little ones.

My issues have been, and things to watch out for and assess:
Will the hen accept the foster chicks...most really broody types do without problems, but keep watch to be safe and have a Plan B in case she views them as intruders and threats to her babies...and when you place the fosters...placing them at the back of the hen can help if she likes to peck at you in protection of her chicks....the foster chick thinks she is pecking at them and it can hinder the transition...but if you are lucky she'll just scoop them under her chest with a "poor little thing" cluck and glare at you;

Will the chicks imprint...that was a major problem for me, the fosters have often missed that window of imprinting that happens during a broody hen hatching and don't view the hen as "Mom" and obey her. They often fear her and don't recognize her welcoming signs as come on in, the feathers are fine. But if you are lucky, they'll snuggle right in without a hesitation;

Will the hatchlings integrate and accept the fosters...another issue here for me as well, especially the larger the age difference...my hatchlings tend to be robust and boisterous with mom and tend to push out the more timid fosters during transition, which can cause poor results for the fosters;

Then there is how well the incubated chicks deal physically with the environmental change...from heat lamp to hen coop (warm vs. cold weather plays a factor here).

The advantage of waiting a week under heat lamp is the incubated chicks could be more physically stable and take the transition better especially in cooler weather conditions...or not. I find the incubator chicks have usually become so reliant on the electric heat source, and false lighting, that it makes them less adaptable to the environment changes you find in natural settings (like green house raised plants). I find, at least the feed store hatchery lines, including those incubated from feed store eggs, are also much slower to imprint on the hen. (One BYC member and I have conjectured it may have to do with the fact that generations of artificial brooding has lessened the instincts for survival in natural surroundings through reverse selection...those that didn't know to imprint with the hen survived and go on to make other future, equally "non-imprintable" generations.)

One trick during the transition process is to put a heat lamp in the corner of the broody hutch/pen so the fosters have a warm place to go while they figure things out and find their pecking order to even the temperature changes for them. Many people do that with success. But there are some obvious risks to that.

I personally won't do heat lamps any more as I burned down a coop with a heat lamp (and nearly my house....also have 2 friends with same story...apparently around here it is not an "if" but "when"). So I have decided to simply figure out how to integrate fosters with broody hens without artificial aids.

That's my experiences thus far.
Good Luck
Lady of McCamley

 

[elliechooks]

Mmmm, lots of food for thought here thanks. I also have some week old chicks in the brooder in the house but as the hen has only been broody a couple of days I hadn't really thought of putting those with her.........
Oh what to do? But first I need to figure out where to put the broody hen as she is in an ordinary nest ox at the moment with the other adult girls trying to lay eggs on top of her - and a large drop to the ground!

 

[shemarie]

My Buff orp hen..Marigold ...who only started laying about 6 weeks ago, just hatched out 14 eggs...mixed chickens...she went missing and I thought she had gone over to the neighbors house. I wasn't getting a lot of eggs and wondered about that...went looking and there she was under a dog kennel in the coop run...with 17 eggs under her. They are the cutest things...and she is such a good mama. My scared of everything Silver laced wyandotte, Lacy, had gone to sitting in the kennel with her during the day. I moved mama and chicks to the other end of the coop after the hatch, and partitioned it off to keep them all safe, this morning when I went out to check on them...there was Aunt Lacy in the run with them. She must figure 14 chicks..this girl is gonna need some support. SO funny.

 

[sonz77]

My Buff orp hen..Marigold ...who only started laying about 6 weeks ago, just hatched out 14 eggs...mixed chickens...she went missing and I thought she had gone over to the neighbors house.  I wasn't getting a lot of eggs and wondered about that...went looking and there she was under a dog kennel in the coop run...with 17 eggs under her.  They are the cutest things...and she is such a good mama.  My scared of everything Silver laced wyandotte, Lacy, had gone to sitting in the kennel with her during the day.   I moved mama and chicks to the other end of the coop after the hatch, and partitioned it off to keep them all safe, this morning when I went out to check on them...there was Aunt Lacy in the run with them.  She must figure 14 chicks..this girl is gonna need some support.  SO funny.

That's cute! And yes with that many chicks, help may not be so bad!!

 

[AmateurChickie]

I found another broody! She's hiding in the banana trees! She got off this morning for food so I went look and she's sitting on 13 eggs!! I candled them all 13 have babies in them! The broody that's in the coop is sitting on 6 eggs, not sure how many of those have babies in them though, it's not dark enough in there for me to candle them