Broody Hen Thread!

[RachaelR32]

Day 14 and my broody has pooped on her eggs. What to do? I've cleaned out the nest, but some of the eggs are filthy.

This girl does not seem to have good instincts. She took weeks to go properly broody and now that she is sitting properly she is not getting up to eat, drink and poop like she should. Her food and water goes untouched for days and she's only pooped about 4 times in the past 2 weeks. Her food is close - in sight - but she can't reach it from the nest.

 

[fisherlady]

Day 14 and my broody has pooped on her eggs.  What to do?  I've cleaned out the nest, but some of the eggs are filthy.  

This girl does not seem to have good instincts.  She took weeks to go properly broody and now that she is sitting properly she is not getting up to eat, drink and poop like she should.  Her food and water goes untouched for days and she's only pooped about 4 times in the past 2 weeks. Her food is close - in sight - but she can't reach it from the nest.  

Swap out any soiled bedding and wipe off the eggs with clean bedding or a dry rag....that is about all that can be done. Some people will say eggs can be cleaned with special washes or certain temps of water but I have never done it so I can't advise if it is safe or even any more effective than just wiping off dry.

Most hens do get up on their own but as you have found some just don't seem to have good instincts about it. (I blame modern breeding practices for interfering in the natural brooding tendancies ) I had a hen who went broody for the first time at over 4 years old. She didn't get up for the first few days so I finally got her up. She had trouble walking (arthritic in one leg) so we then got her up 2 days later, after doing this 2 or 3 times she finally figured it out and started getting up on her own. She finished her brood in good condition and was a wonderful broody mom to her chicks.

See how your hen fares with the chicks, if she is good as a mother hen you may want to use her again with the understanding she isn't as 'hands off' as we would like for setting but does good at raising. If she proves a poor mother hen then you can probably decide to just break her if she tries to brood again unless you can really supervise both her setting and raising. Everyone differs on how much involvement they want to have or are willing to have.

I hope your current hatch hasn't been too adversely effected by the incident.

 

[microchick]

Glad Pokey is still fighting. ..when I have a single smaller chick I will make a point to sit on the floor with the broody and chicks and hand feed a couple times a day, making sure the little one gets private chances at choice goodies. Often they doze just because keeping up takes a lot out of them, they didn't get the first couple of days of uninterrupted rest after hatch like the others, they had to be out and about almost immediately after hatch.
Keep mama and chicks in a smaller area for a few days also, if mama can't roam very far then the little one doesn't have to go far to keep up.

My favorite treat for them is scrambled eggs and chopped, hulled sunflower seeds.

They are being transferred to a smaller pen than what they are in now. I usually keep them there for a week or 10 days before graduating them up to a grow out pen. This hen usually only stays with them for two to two and a half weeks before going back to the flock.

My little runt looked much improved this morning. It's more alert and it's little butt is clean for the first time. I've been watching to make sure it is eating and drinking its share and it is.

Thanks for the reminder about the scrambled egg. I had completely forgotten about that. Duh. I gave her last bunch of chicks scrambled egg every morning and they loved it. And no, Pokey didn't a chance to rest at all. By the time it was out of the egg, Mom was on the move with the rest of the brood. Like I said, I kept pushing the poor little thing under her wing every time she stopped with the other chicks.

Today Pokey is 4 days old, Hopefully it is well on the road to catching up at this point.

 

[thebulg]

Day 14 and my broody has pooped on her eggs. What to do? I've cleaned out the nest, but some of the eggs are filthy.

This girl does not seem to have good instincts. She took weeks to go properly broody and now that she is sitting properly she is not getting up to eat, drink and poop like she should. Her food and water goes untouched for days and she's only pooped about 4 times in the past 2 weeks. Her food is close - in sight - but she can't reach it from the nest.

mine was the same. it took her over a month to finally go broody and she abandoned at 6 days the first time (all of the eggs were infertile, it turned out). she started laying again and almost right away started hiding eggs and i didn't know that was what she was doing. she ended up setting a clutch of 17 eggs, which is too many. she stepped on an egg early on. she also refused to get up and soiled her nest twice. after that she only got off once every 2 or 3 days, and i would always have to help her back to the eggs because she would get lost. she did a fine job hatching the chicks out, but she got mites at the very end and things that were very very out of her control went poorly. the good news is that she is an INCREDIBLE mom. i mean top notch. i am hoping that over the years we can breed or encourage broodiness back into our own little flock, and thus end up with a better brooder. but she did the job. it was just messy

with all of the yolk and poop, i changed the bedding, and i used a damp paper towel to get the bigger chunks off and then a dry paper towel to get the rest rubbed off. we ended up in the end with 13 live chicks. one egg was infertile, and 2 died early on from what i can only assume was bacteria. clean them off, dust the nest with your choice of insect control to keep the flies from breeding there, and try your best to candle eggs before day 18 to see if any look bad. let me tell ya, exploding eggs are no joke.

 

[RachaelR32]

mine was the same. it took her over a month to finally go broody and she abandoned at 6 days the first time (all of the eggs were infertile, it turned out). she started laying again and almost right away started hiding eggs and i didn't know that was what she was doing. she ended up setting a clutch of 17 eggs, which is too many. she stepped on an egg early on. she also refused to get up and soiled her nest twice. after that she only got off once every 2 or 3 days, and i would always have to help her back to the eggs because she would get lost. she did a fine job hatching the chicks out, but she got mites at the very end and things that were very very out of her control went poorly. the good news is that she is an INCREDIBLE mom. i mean top notch. i am hoping that over the years we can breed or encourage broodiness back into our own little flock, and thus end up with a better brooder. but she did the job. it was just messy

with all of the yolk and poop, i changed the bedding, and i used a damp paper towel to get the bigger chunks off and then a dry paper towel to get the rest rubbed off. we ended up in the end with 13 live chicks. one egg was infertile, and 2 died early on from what i can only assume was bacteria. clean them off, dust the nest with your choice of insect control to keep the flies from breeding there, and try your best to candle eggs before day 18 to see if any look bad. let me tell ya, exploding eggs are no joke. 

Thats good to know there is still a chance she'll be a good mum.

At least she's not sat on expensive eggs - I got them free off a friend. They had all been developing well when I candled a few days ago.

 

[RachaelR32]

Swap out any soiled bedding and wipe off the eggs with clean bedding or a dry rag....that is about all that can be done. Some people will say eggs can be cleaned with special washes or certain temps of water but I have never done it so I can't advise if it is safe or even any more effective than just wiping off dry.

Most hens do get up on their own but as you have found some just don't seem to have good instincts about it. (I blame modern breeding practices for interfering in the natural brooding tendancies ) I had a hen who went broody for the first time at over 4 years old. She didn't get up for the first few days so I finally got her up. She had trouble walking (arthritic in one leg) so we then got her up 2 days later, after doing this 2 or 3 times she finally figured it out and started getting up on her own. She finished her brood in good condition and was a wonderful broody mom to her chicks.

See how your hen fares with the chicks, if she is good as a mother hen you may want to use her again with the understanding she isn't as 'hands off' as we would like for setting but does good at raising. If she proves a poor mother hen then you can probably decide to just break her if she tries to brood again unless you can really supervise both her setting and raising. Everyone differs on how much involvement they want to have or are willing to have.

I hope your current hatch hasn't been too adversely effected by the incident.

I've wiped the eggs down as best I can. I hope she gets at least a few out so I can see how good a mother she will be or not

 

[lydiagirl99]

Hi guys ! My hens eggs are due to hatch in about 4 days and she's sitting on 12 eggs I just wanted to ask you guys what would be the right thing to do. This is my first broody and she seems to be doing wonderfully with her eggs. Gets up on her own time and goes to the bathroom, eats and drinks and then right back to her eggs. The thing I'm curious about is I don't know whether to take her babies from her once they hatch or not and put them into my brooder. I currently already have 4 almost 2 week old chicks in my brooder but I figured after a bit they'd all get along if I put new babies in there. The reason I'm even considering taking them away is that first, I want to make sure they're friendly. Give them lots of handling and time with people like I've done with all my chickens and they all turned out very wonderful. My second reason being that the pen I was going to put her and her babies in has had some predator issues. It's right next to the chicken run but separate. It's a dog pen put we've put chicken wire around it. A week ago we put 3 little ducklings in there just because they were still small and then we were going to let them hang around our pond but a few days after they got put in there, one duckling dissapeared and then 2 days later I found the remains of another one... I didn't want my duckling to be lonely so I have her to my neighbor who has ducks and a pond. Anyway, I'm fearful that if I put momma and babies in there that some could get snatched away by whatever got the ducklings

 

[JRabbit90]

Hi guys!
I was looking for some opinions on my broody. She's obviously an RIR and I wasn't expecting her to go broody. But anyways she's been doing really well, doesn't switch nests while incubating, all seven eggs hatched and she hasn't lost one chick, but the only thing that bothers me is how she left the chicks. Is it normal for her to ditch them at 4 weeks old? I felt that it was a little too early for them. What do you guys think? Is she a good broody or not? Here's a picture of her first day being a momma .

 

[Honora]

Hi guys!
I was looking for some opinions on my broody. She's obviously an RIR and I wasn't expecting her to go broody. But anyways she's been doing really well, doesn't switch nests while incubating, all seven eggs hatched and she hasn't lost one chick, but the only thing that bothers me is how she left the chicks. Is it normal for her to ditch them at 4 weeks old? I felt that it was a little too early for them. What do you guys think? Is she a good broody or not? Here's a picture of her first day being a momma

.

Aw, pretty mama and pretty babies! I love the red chicks, are they RIRs too?

 

[fisherlady]

Hi guys!
I was looking for some opinions on my broody. She's obviously an RIR and I wasn't expecting her to go broody. But anyways she's been doing really well, doesn't switch nests while incubating, all seven eggs hatched and she hasn't lost one chick, but the only thing that bothers me is how she left the chicks. Is it normal for her to ditch them at 4 weeks old? I felt that it was a little too early for them. What do you guys think? Is she a good broody or not? Here's a picture of her first day being a momma .

4 weeks isn't unusual, many of my hens do 4-5 weeks in the warmer months and 6-7 weeks when it is colder.