Broody Hen Thread!

[microchick]

Gator75, she will be broody until either she is broken or until you give her fertile eggs to sit on.

To break her you need to have cool air flowing under her. A simple wire cage will usually work. No bedding. I do give mine a roost perch for them to sit on which once again allows cooler air to flow under them. It usually takes about 3 days to brake them using this method. But be warned. She will probably go broody again in the near future. I have found breaking not to be a permanent cure for my hens. Those hormones once activated can be powerful to overcome.

I usually just cave and give them fertile eggs to sit on. Even with 4 eggs she will be happy and if you have to you can always sell or rehome the youngsters.

 

[gator75]

So she won't just break naturally, eventually?If this is a common occurance with her I may just find her a home with someone who breeds. She's a pretty moddled Java but I have no time for chicks.

 

[carlf]

My broody hen usually breaks on her own in about 2 weeks if I keep removing all the eggs, including the fake ones.

 

[microchick]

In my experience, no. She will not break naturally once she goes into 'mommy mode' and you do not want to let her be 'broody' for an extended length of time without sitting on eggs as it is unhealthy for her.

Actually, with mom taking care of chicks for you it is not nearly as time consuming or demanding as having chicks in a brooder that you have to raise.

The choice is individual though and you won't have trouble finding a home for a reliable, broody hen.

 

[16 paws]

Hey thanks, Marie aka 16paws.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We have friends who are wanting young OEGBs. These folks have been very nice to us, having given us all the siding for our new coop and enough chain link fencing to make our rooster pen. The closest thing I could find nearby was from one of our Amish neighbors whose flock looks very OEGB-ish. Hey, I don't look gift eggs in the mouth! LOL. So IF some of these eggs don't hatch and IF they aren't OEGBs well, my chicken math is going to have to be recalculated. I've already warned DH whose response was that he had already figured that out.

I swear this little broody has kept me on my toes. In the mean time Aggie and another BO hen have been roaming around doing the broody hen cluck so I don't know what they are up to but whatever it is, I hope they hold off doing it until Lil'Girl does her thing and vacates the broody nest/

How are things going with you and your flock?

Doing great here Microchick,
Thanks for asking.

I went back to work at Michaels. Part of the reason is the district manager got a message to me thru another worker there, (they are not allowed to call you at all while you are on LOA) and he let me know that they really missed me and even if I came back to work a couple hours a week he would be fine with that, he even said I could come in at 11 at night and he would get someone to open the store for me if thats what I wanted. He was joking of course but I decided I missed the creative part of my job. I love to make one of a kind arrangements for people to enjoy at the holidays.

So back to work I go. I havent had much time to post because of that.
I have one broody with 2 Seramas and one bantam Cochin. They are about ready to be on their own now. I am done hatching for a while now. I had to rehome some roos and that is so hard. I think I had 10 and an now down to 6

. I love roosters but cant keep them all.

We had an old 400 square foot shed on our property that we are making into a little mini farmhouse looking building now. It was all rotted out and it had a beehive under it. We had a guy come out to save the hive and he ended up getting it out. He said it was the largest one he had ever seen, it was the size of a large mattress and had 20 thousand bees in it!

I missed how you got a new broody?
Marie

 

[Dani4Hedgies]

Omg omg omg Sapphire did it !!!! I didn't want to stay or post anything but she did it she hatched our first clutch here. This is day 19/20 and we only have 1 chick but she had 7 eggs and hasn't gotten up yet and at minum 2 eggs had chicks in them on Monday ( couldn't see into the blue/green eggs at all so don't know what those 5 have)

(yesterday)

(today)

( as i was putting up the chick cage she came over and when I put my hand down in she hopped)

 

[16 paws]

Omg omg omg Sapphire did it !!!! I didn't want to stay or post anything but she did it she hatched our first clutch here. This is day 19/20 and we only have 1 chick but she had 7 eggs and hasn't gotten up yet and at minum 2 eggs had chicks in them on Monday ( couldn't see into the blue/green eggs at all so don't know what those 5 have) (yesterday)

(today)

( as i was putting up the chick cage she came over and when I put my hand down in she hopped)

Cute mama and baby!

 

[Selsley]

So she won't just break naturally, eventually?If this is a common occurance with her I may just find her a home with someone who breeds. She's a pretty moddled Java but I have no time for chicks.

you dont need time, the chickens do it themselves

at 6 weeks after hatch our hen has left the top nest(after 2 weeks) and started perching she also has started laying, in the meantime only half the chicks are perching, the other 3 as still soiling a nest box, i hope this will end by the weekend.

 

[gator75]

Ok, a buddy is giving me 4 (I believe fertiliZed eggs - he has two free range b rocks that run with a leghorn rooster).

Lots of questions:

1. My hen has been broody for 2 weeks. If I put eggs under her it will be another 21 days +/-. Is 5 weeks broody too much stress?

2. Here is my coop.

I have a single egg box that is elevated off the coop that my other two hens use daily. Should I install a small nesting box just above ground level for this broody to sit on the eggs in so that I don't have to keep lifting her up to get the two infertile eggs every day? Also, so chicks can get to the ground easy after hatch?

3. What do I have to do when the chicks hatch

4. How do I know for sure the eggs from my friend are fertilized. Can he hold them in his office for a day and they will still be good to go right?

5. When I get rid of the chicks after a week or so, will my hen get sad or angry?

6. Will my other two hens harm the chicks?


That's a start. Thx

 

[microchick]

Congratulations Dani4Hedgies on the new chicks, and to 16paws for the return to work! It's always nice to work at something you enjoy doing and having good people to work for is a sweet bonus.

Yes, it was really strange. One day I went out to collect eggs in the late afternoon as we had been gone all day and to my surprise all 13 hens had laid. It was a first. Those eggs were piled up in the nesting box like a pyramid. The next day I found Lil'Girl happily sitting on 6 eggs and 2 other hens doing the broody cluck. I cannot help but wonder if that egg perfecta didn't somehow set them all off. I left three eggs under Lil'Girl and went to work trying to find OEGB eggs for her to incubate. The closest thing I could find were Serama and Mottled Cochin Bantam eggs and I would have had to travel for a half a day to get them and that wasn't going to happen. I remembered that I'd seen that one of our Amish neighbors had chickens roaming around that looked like OEGB and dashed down to talk to him. He'd had somebody give him a rooster with the request to raise fighting birds for him and the Amish guy had refused (good for him!) The rooster stayed though so the majority of his birds were OEGB with maybe some other genes thrown in but he didn't know for sure.

Well that was close enough for me to try. He gave me 8 eggs which Lil'Girl has sloppily been trying to hatch for the last two weeks.

If the little devils hatch and are OEGBs our friends get first pick of them. If they aren't what they are looking for or decide that they don't want them then I guess I got more chickens. LOL.

This is starting to sound like the Christmas story. There is almost no room at the inn and in the meantime, two more BO hens are roaming around tuuk tuuk tuuking away.