Broody Hen

[HillCountryChicken]

Hello, so I have a weird question… we absolutely love having broody hens and getting to see what all hatches, but for some reason we have a broody hen that has not wanted to move for over a week now except for occasional times to get food and water… seemingly normal, right? So I finally saw her leave the nest so I wanted to go candle the eggs after it had been like 1.5 weeks and poof! No eggs! She has been laying on an invisible clutch of eggs now for about two weeks. I tried putting some fertile eggs under her so she can at least hatch something and stop being broody, but no… she doesn’t want the eggs. She wants her invisible eggs. What is happening?? It has now been like 3 and a half weeks and she is not sick or anything like that, she just likes to hatch eggs, she has gone broody 1 other time before this and hatched 9 beautiful healthy chicks.

 

[dennisma1]

Hello, so I have a weird question… we absolutely love having broody hens and getting to see what all hatches, but for some reason we have a broody hen that has not wanted to move for over a week now except for occasional times to get food and water… seemingly normal, right? So I finally saw her leave the nest so I wanted to go candle the eggs after it had been like 1.5 weeks and poof! No eggs! She has been laying on an invisible clutch of eggs now for about two weeks. I tried putting some fertile eggs under her so she can at least hatch something and stop being broody, but no… she doesn’t want the eggs. She wants her invisible eggs. What is happening?? It has now been like 3 and a half weeks and she is not sick or anything like that, she just likes to hatch eggs, she has gone broody 1 other time before this and hatched 9 beautiful healthy chicks.

Lol yeah that's my crazy Buffy. She does the same thing. We don't even have a rooster. She will stubbornly try to hatch pine shavings for weeks on end. I just stick her in a cage.

 

[kerbotx]

Do you think a snake could have gotten the eggs?

 

[aart]

I tried putting some fertile eggs under her so she can at least hatch something and stop being broody, but no… she doesn’t want the eggs.

Did she leave the nest when you added more eggs?
Is she in with the flock or is she separated?