Broody in a penthouse box!

[Diggs5646]

Hi All!
My nesting box is about 3 feet off the floor. So the ladies have enough ground space to talk around. I have a broody hen that I am watching and wanting to encourage her to hatch. Really excited about it!
I want to move her to a more spacious area with the hopes of keeping her broodiness. I don't want the babies to fall out of the box after hatching.
How can I move her and her eggs to a new location without "breaking" her.
When I do move her, should I give her new eggs or keep the ones shes sitting on with her?
Its been about ten days since we noticed.

 

[NatJ]

See if you can take her eggs briefly to candle them. (Use a bright flashlight in a very dark room. A bathroom or closet may be a good choice for the dark room.)
If there are no chicks inside, then you will need to give her fresh eggs anyway.

If you move the hen, I think there's about a 50% chance of her breaking and not staying broody. Even if she does stay broody, she may spend a day or so pacing back and forth and break her eggs by mistake. Or let them get too cold and die.

Can you make a cover for the front of the nestbox? Maybe use hardware cloth or chicken wire: something that lets air through but not chicks. That way the chicks could hatch safely, and you could move the hen afterward.

While she's sitting on her eggs, the hen wants to stay in that particular nest. Once the chicks hatch, she will want to stay with the chicks--so you will be able to move her and them.

Of course, if you cover the front of the nestbox, you will have to take her out each day to eat, drink, and poop.

It's a good idea to mark the eggs (use a pencil) and to check every day or so anyway: you don't want the other hens adding eggs to the nestbox, because then you will have chicks hatching on many different days--which means the later ones would die while the hen cares for the ones that hatch early.


(If the eggs are not fertile, I suggest you try moving the hen, but give her fake eggs for a few days until you see whether she stays broody or not. If she breaks, at least you haven't lost any real eggs, and she will probably go broody again sometime in the future. If she stays broody and is willing to sit in the new place, give her new eggs to hatch.)

 

[NatJ]

Oh, just thought of another idea: you might be able to make a cage in front of the nestbox, sitting it on a table or something to get the height right. That's another way to let chicks hatch safely in that location, and then you could move the chicks and hen after they have hatched.

 

[Matzwd]

Can you fit a small animal carrier in the nest box? I've had success letting them sit in there and then moving the crate to the floor after a couple of days, closing the door until she settles after the carrier is moved. I've also not had a problem with breaking the broody by just making a nest inside a carrier, placing all the eggs inside and locking the hen in until she settles. You do have to watch closely to make sure she returns to the right place after taking a break though.

 

[Diggs5646]

I ended up building a "patio" out of hardware cloth with window screen fabric tenting it. She has about an extra 2 square foot of space to walk around. She has food and water on the patio. She seems pretty content now.