After about ten years of having chickens (and ducks and, most recently, turkeys) we had our first broody birds this summer. What an event this has been! It was like a cascade effect. Mrs. T (a BB White) started the trend late in August, setting up shop in a grassy area under some trees. We debated long and hard about those eggs, but we'd seen our BB Bronze doing the deed with her on many occasions. He's all that and a bag of chips, strutting around our property like the king of all he surveys. Lucky for us he's docile (it is probably the head noogies we give him) because he's one big boy. We never planned to breed them. They were destined for the dinner table... but everyone fell in love with Mrs. T because she is very sweet and my husband ended up in the hospital in November (then again in January, February and March
) and Mr. T missed his date(s) with destiny. I knew enough about BB birds to know that they don't typically breed naturally because of their size, but I guess no one told
them. We'd raised many babies over the years, but never got around to hatching out our own. It seemed ridiculous to try to hatch those turkey eggs, but sometimes the maddest schemes are the most worthwhile. I went looking for advice and found so much on this forum. I will forever be grateful. You folks have such a wealth of knowledge! Since Mrs. T wasn't being consistent, I went and got a very basic incubator, brought in the eggs, read at length on this forum, scrutinized and candled, and just went for it. What did we have to lose? While we were at it, we snagged a few duck eggs and popped them in as well. After about a week of trying to remember to turn the eggs, I gave up and purchased the automatic turner. lol It was a learning experience for the whole family. As we went along, we removed eggs that were obviously not progressing and in the end had 4 of the original 6 or 7 turkey eggs and 2 of 3 duck eggs. Both ducks eggs hatched, much to the delight of my teenage daughter who adores ducks. They are now about four weeks old, as precious as can be, and really need to be out of my house! haha The drake is a Rouen and we assumed both ducklings would be as well since we have two others. We were surprised to find one Rouen and one crossbreed Rouen/Pekin (she's too cute for words). We'd had more fun with these ducklings than we've ever had with all the ducks that came before. We kind of hate to move them outside because our ducks have grown increasingly disinterested in human contact where once they had been very friendly. Strawberries bring them running but otherwise they roam around the property in a tight little cluster until the lead drake breaks off to chase the dog or us. We named him Gary after the duck in the film
The Pacifier. In addition to the ducks, we successfully hatched three poults. We lost one after a couple of days, but the other two are as lively and friendly as can be. I love the way they sing.
In the meantime... one of our lovely light Brahmas (my husband's favorite breed) went broody. Seriously, seriously broody. We now know she's one of those overly-dedicated hens that will let herself go while sitting on a nest. Thanks again to this forum, we knew what to do to get her to eat and stay healthy. We have a variety of breeds here and our rooster is a stately red Araucana without much in the way of tail feathers. He's always been so nice, we just kept him. I honestly didn't think he was breeding with any of the hens the cheeky little devil.. The nest Brahma Momma had claimed for her own had at least three different types of eggs in it. She hatched five chicks and for the life of me I don't know what they are aside from the ones that look like Araucanas (we have several hens). She went from that nest to another nest, intent on hatching more. We eventually put a stop to it because she's a lovely, friendly bird and we didn't want her to kill herself over these eggs. We brought them in, put them in the second incubator I bought (I'm doomed now, aren't I?), but none hatched. So we had our little mixed batch of chicks and our Impossible Poults (I love turkeys!) and our adorable ducklings and it seemed like we'd had incredible success. When the turkey gave us another 13 eggs, we couldn't resist. Into the incubator they went. Meantime, in the long grass behind the house... a secret nest. We really don't know how they pulled this off since my daughter counts the birds every night, but one afternoon while she was outside, she saw movement in the grass. Lo and Behold four dinky, buff coloured Araucana chicks... with their ISA Brown mama, Mini Boo Boo (named after our fearless, mice-slayer Boo Boo the Chicken Raptor... but that's a story for another day)..It goes without saying that I told the kids to find all the nests and pick up the eggs because by then it was September and September in Michigan is unpredictable when it comes to weather. In no time we've doubled our flock and I don't know what I'm going to do if any of those chicks are roosters. Eat them?
Our clutch of 13 turkey eggs was a complete disaster. We had eggs explode--something I would not have been prepared for had I not read about it here--and sadly we had what seemed to be developing poults stop developing, A learning experience. Everyone that has hatched is going great so you can't blame me for what I did yesterday when I discovered Mrs. T sitting on another 8 eggs...
I was mad at my hen for sneaking eggs away, as we don't need more chickens, but I decided there is nothing I can do anyways, so I may as well be excited about the adorable chicks! 
