Broody Hen Thread!

[Ry77]

My 5& half month old golden sexlink has disappeared. I'm so upset but I've been told she may have gone broody. I'm a new chicken mama. I bought 5 sexlinks from a store in April because I over heard a customer saying he was going to get chicks for his snake!! I never knew I would be a chicken mama until that day.....so my point is I haven't experienced a broody hen yet. She literally just disappeared 2 days ago & im just beside myself. She loves me as much as I love her. There are no signs of predators or anything. My others act like nothing is wrong when I mention her name. They free range during the day I was even outside when she disappeared. I have searched and searched... Nothing! We have lots of land so I could be looking in all the wrong places. My question is will my others lead me to her if i let them out of the pen??? Please can anyone help give me advice? Thank u

 

[nchls school]

Quote:
No. The other birds are not likely to lead you to the one that is missing. Keep looking, be patient, and hope for the best. Good luck!

 

[Ry77]

Okay thank you for your help

 

[rebrascora]

@Ry77

Hi Sorry to hear your hen is missing. It is not unheard of for sex links to go broody but it is unusual. How old is she? If she is just young still, then it is less likely. Do you know when was the last time she laid an egg in the nest box for you? When hens start to go broody, especially when they free range, they lay a clutch of eggs in a secret nest and then once they have enough, they start to incubate them. A clutch is usually 10-14. If you have had eggs from her in the last week then it is unlikely she is broody.
As stated by @nchls school , the other hens will probably not be aware of the location of her nest if she is broody. They can be quite sneaky about going back and forth to them. She will however come off the nest once a day to eat drink and poop. Your best chance of finding her is to keep a close eye and ear out for her returning to eat and perhaps drink. This will only take about 15 mins each day but may cause a bit of a commotion because broody hens can be a bit fractious and usually fluff their feathers up and make a regular cluck cluck almost like the ticking of a very loud clock, counting off the seconds till she has to get back to the nest. If you spot her then just observe and follow her back to the nest from a distance as she may not return to it if she thinks you are watching.... they can be quite sly.

If she is setting and you find her nest, you then have the dilemma of whether to mover her or not. If you move her, you will need to confine her to a cage within the coop so that she cannot return to the old site.... she is programmed to home in on the nest site not the eggs, so even if you remove the eggs she will probably still return to the nest. If you don't have a cockerel then you have the choice of breaking her of her broodiness and @aart has a good explanation of a broody buster cage or get her some fertile eggs. Letting her to continue being broody without hope of hatching eggs is not good for her health.

Good luck and I really hope for your sake that she is one of those exceptional sex links that goes broody.

Best wishes

Barbara

 

[Ry77]

Oh okay

She is6 months old & layed 2 days before she disappeared. Thank you for your help

 

[rebrascora]

@Ry77

So sorry it doesn't sound good, but chickens are funny creatures and there is always an exception to the norm....hope your girl is one of them....

....However you might want to rethink your free range strategy to protect your other girls or be prepared for further losses. If it is a predator it will be back and there are very few places in the world where chickens have no predators. Sex linked chickens do not have much natural savvy.... they have been selectively bred for production to the detriment of other instincts, so they are easy targets.. If you decide to free range, you pretty much have to accept that there is a risk and offset that against the enjoyment of seeing your chickens free to forage.

Good luck with the rest of your flock.

Barbara

 

[Sienatiger]

Day 20 with 4 eggs under a broody! Already 3 pips and I can hear the peeping of the one that hasn't piped yet. Anything I should know for today? When should I expect the babies to hatch?

 

[Dani4Hedgies]

Made a great contact here in KC and got on a wait list for Silkies got a text on Fri that they had 5 chicks (i had ordered 12) and would I be interested. Since I already have 2 S.S. which are about 3 wks and Lavender Orpington that is about a week I said sure. Then much to my amazement they called me a couple hours before we are meeting up to see if I would be interested in one of the broody moms of the chicks as she has the wrong kind of comb fir their breeding program. Which I said heck yes!!!!! So Im proud to interduce "Miss Know It All Butt" (she came with that name) and her 5 week old chicks 1 blue 1 black and 3 paints. Aaaannnnddd last night I discovered that Silkies Are Infact crazy awesome mom's as once she heard my older chicks nothing would do until they were under her too being mothered and taken care of. So here is my new Broody mom and her 8 chicks in their own pen in my house for a couple months until they are big enough to join the main flock.

...yes there is a Sweety Heater in the corner just to make sure cause the S.S. are like half the size of their new "mommy"

 

[Dmontgomery]

Back in August I reported we were giving day old chicks to my OEGB Henrietta. 4 out of 5 survived. They will be 6 weeks old tomorrow.

Three of them are already as big as she is.

The 3 Cochin/bantam mix chicks she hatched out in May have all ended up being roosters.

Beauregard

Rufus and Henry

 

[jhopp6]

I was hoping one of my Silkie hens would go broody by the time my shipped eggs arrived. Well, that was 8 weeks ago, and I now have a hen that hatched and is raising 6 Silkie chicks, another that just hatched out 4 itty bitty Seramas, and another girl that decided to park herself in the nest box. When it rains it pours! lol