Broody Hen Thread!

[okiepony]

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BOSS = black oil sunflower seed

 

[NewToFarming]

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How long has your girl been broody? I would say the chances are slim for her to go to the old eggs once she is done hatching the ones she has been sitting in and the chicks are a few days old for sure. Silkies love to be moms and are very good moms so I believe once she hatches the chicks she will stay with them.
Some of my silkies get confused and go to different nests while they are brooding but once the chicks hatched they never got mixed up and went onto different nests.

Thanks so much, Lisa. My neighbor suggested that maybe the broody hen went under the house because she smelled her sister, not to sit on eggs. Her sister, who loved to go under the house and brood on eggs, died on August 25 and was my only other chicken. Do you think that's possible, that she was just smelling her sister under there? The strange thing is, this surviving chicken never went under the house, but the dead one did all the time. Also, the dead one was my broody girl, and this surviving one was never broody, until her sister died, and then she immediately became broody. Isn't that odd?

That is very odd and it could be she smelled her and was possibly looking for her??? Poor thing! I think her having chicks is great and she will have company with her then. How did her sister die?
Is there any way to maybe just block off the area as a just in case? Even like placing a board there to make it hard for her to get to?

 

[waitin on eggs]

Hi all,

I just set 11 eggs under my brrody orp, now i have some questions: what exactly do i need to do exactly? Should i candle or not? Should i move her off the nest once in a while to check eggs? Or do I just leave it all up to mama? This is my first time with a broody

 

[instar8]

Make sure you mark them so no one sneaks any in on you! Other than that, just let her take care of them.


lynn

 

[AlienChick]

My little Silkie hatched a Serama baby this morning!

I noticed a little pip yesterday afternoon and was hoping for a baby chick this morning.

She's here!!

 

[waitin on eggs]

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Thanks Lynn, She is seperated in her own little coop so no need to mark, but im wondering if i should candle them like 1/2 way through or not? I've heard of exploding rotten, or broken eggs contaminating the good ones. I dunno, she does not seem to leave the best and i dont want to disturb her anymore than nescessary as she is a wee bit ornery when it comes to her nest. Lol Hmmm , anybody?

 

[waitin on eggs]

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Absolutely precious!! I can't wait...

 

[AlienChick]

Thank you!

And I, too, was concerned about rotten exploding eggs; but, fortunately, none of them exploded. I have no idea if the other eggs will hatch (there were ten altogether). I candled the first seven eggs at 8 days and wrote “good” on the good ones and discarded the duds. Then I discovered my Silkie was stealing eggs, so she ended up with five more that I never candled. I'm curious to see how many more hatch.

Today I moved mom and nest to the shed so the babies will be safe when mom takes them out of the nest.

 

[ClareScifi]

Lisa,

Her sister died on August 25, at only 17 months old, the day I left on vacation. The temperature was 98 F that day. I was to be gone 12 days and was worried about predators, her going back under the house and being broody and maybe getting roost mites or malnourished, eating bad things out of the neighbor's compost pile, eating too much of the catfood I'd put out for the cats, etc., so I thought she'd be safest in the run). The run is new, and I guess it didn't have enough deep shade. Maybe she had an underlying condition, since her twin sister lived, but I think she died of a heat stroke that afternoon. My neighbor saw her about 5 p.m. that day and thought she didn't look quite right and she was in the same position the next morning, dead. He buried her. I wish I could have done an autopsy. Had I been home that day I would probably have been able to see she didn't feel right and gotten her into the deep shade of the woodpile, and I'll bet she would have survived. It just makes me sick. She did have breast feathers picked out, which I read could be a sign of fatty liver disease, and she was a bit bigger than her surviving sister from the time she was a tiny chick. Her toenails might have been a bit long, which is also a symptom. I thought she had picked out her feathers because she was extremely broody. She did pant harder in hot weather than her surviving sister did. What does it sound like to you that got her? The neighbor said she had her right leg back and her head down kind of to that right side, when he found her dead.

I begged him this morning to let me fence the porch in, but he says he likes to put his cut wood under there to store so it doesn't get wet. I suggested we could put a door in the fencing. He gave me the chickens as a gift. If only I'd opened the door to the coop that day I left on vacation... I was heading to the ocean to cool off, and my poor hen burnt up in the heat, as I see it. I had no idea it was going to get that hot that day. The weather forecasts didn't suggest it would get that hot.
'

 

[NewToFarming]

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Oh, I am so very sorry but you did what you had thought would be best and if you were not going to be there to watch her like normal it was best to keep her in the run so nothing would get at her so please don't blame yourself. We all do things that are for the best and unforseen things happen. You did what you thought was best for her. It does sound like the heat was what had gotten her. It is so hard to lose one like that.
I recently lost my blind girl in the rains and flooding. Instead of putting her in her run because she would get wet in the rain, I kept her in the coop and she managed to get out of the coop and get lost in the pasture. I searched for days in the torrential rains and I could not find her. After everything stopped, I took my dog out with me to look again and he found her but I was too late. She was dead. There was so much water and it was also cold and she couldn't hang on. I felt terrible that I did not put her in the small coop & run that day but I thought she would be warmer and drier in the big coop. The sad part was she was only about 75 feet from the house and the grasses were so high, I could not see her there and I searched all over everyday and never seen her until the rains stopped and the grasses were by that time laying over from all the rain and my dog took me there.

If your girl was broody alot, they do pull their breast feathers out so they can get better contact with the eggs and keep them warmer. So, maybe that was not a sign of another illness. It does sound like the heat was a bit too much for her. I am so sorry and I do hope all goes well with your broody hen and she behaves and stays on her nest. I have noticed with mine, they tend to go to different nests when they start out being broody but later on, they get the hang of it and do not go elsewhere.

You have to keep us posted how things are going and of course pics of the new little ones when they hatch!!!