Broody NEEDS to stick it out!!!!

[TheChickenGirl16]

Hello, all!
This is my Gold Laced Wyandotte, Goldilocks. She has gone broody, and is currently setting on 12 eggs.

Goldy-Girl is a first time mom, and I was wondering, does anyone have any tips to help her stick it out?
I’ve had 2 broodies already this year who have incubated until day 8, and then abandoned the nest.

She is only on day three. Should I separate her?
I do have another run, but I currently have chicks in there.
If I were to separate her, would she end up feeling like she was missing out on the social interactions, thus abandoning her nest?

Any thoughts???

 

[FunClucks]

Hello, all!
This is my Gold Laced Wyandotte, Goldilocks. She has gone broody, and is currently setting on 12 eggs.
View attachment 4099440
Goldy-Girl is a first time mom, and I was wondering, does anyone have any tips to help her stick it out?
I’ve had 2 broodies already this year who have incubated until day 8, and then abandoned the nest.

She is only on day three. Should I separate her?
I do have another run, but I currently have chicks in there.
If I were to separate her, would she end up feeling like she was missing out on the social interactions, thus abandoning her nest?

Any thoughts???

Generally, broodies don't like to be disturbed. If you move her, there's a risk she may abandon the nest. What I did was create an enclosure inside of my covered run to separate out my broody within the coop with her own food and water, so she was with the others and protected by predators, but wouldn't have other hens laying new eggs in her nest, breaking her eggs, or harassing her. You might see if you can do something similar.

The other thing is, most folks who want a broody to hatch eggs don't give them to her until the second week. You can keep fake eggs under her to keep her brooding, but remove fresh laid eggs daily so they don't start to incubate, or prevent others from laying in there so you don't have to disturb your broody when collecting the eggs. Or you wait until she goes to eat and drink, then pull out fresh laid eggs then. Other hens will lay in the nest when she goes to eat and drink, so you could have a wide variety of chick ages, which means a lot of otherwise viable chicks may be abandoned after the first batch of chicks hatch. A staggered hatch is hard to incubate yourself also. Once a hen has been broody for 1.5-2 weeks, most hens will stick it out after that, and will sit until they get babies hatched. They will sit on the nest until 3 days after the first hatching comes out, then take everyone to eat and drink. Any unhatched eggs are usually abandoned at that point.

There are no guarantees in brooding. But it sounds like the hens who left after 8 days just weren't serious enough about it - often it can be a hormonal issue, if the nest wasn't disturbed.

Also, 12 eggs sounds like a bit much for her, with her physical size. You might try 8 or six. The idea is her body has to cover them all, or you'll get a lot of failures because they can't all stay warm under the hen and will all spend some time not-warm, and therefore risk dying or not developing properly. They can leave the nest by accident. That's less likely to happen in that nice tire nest, but they might creep out the back and be uncovered when she's not looking.

You might try in the middle of the night, go out there with a high powered small beam flashlight and quickly candle them all and remove the clears. If she's been on them for a week, the clears will be obvious - you will see veins and nucleus development in the fertile ones. Any time you disturb the nest there's risk, but I think it's less likely she'll abandon in the dark because she can't see, and tossing the clears will give less eggs under her and ensure the others have a better chance of full development and hatching.

 

[Yard Farmer]

Hello, all!
This is my Gold Laced Wyandotte, Goldilocks. She has gone broody, and is currently setting on 12 eggs.
View attachment 4099440
Goldy-Girl is a first time mom, and I was wondering, does anyone have any tips to help her stick it out?
I’ve had 2 broodies already this year who have incubated until day 8, and then abandoned the nest.

She is only on day three. Should I separate her?
I do have another run, but I currently have chicks in there.
If I were to separate her, would she end up feeling like she was missing out on the social interactions, thus abandoning her nest?

Any thoughts???

Keep her in a dark, quite place away from the other birds. If that requires you to move her, move her at night and black-out her pen.
Make her comfortable, and she should be good to go.

I have a broody right now, and she's sitting with all my other birds just fine. Only issue I can see is making sure the chicks will be safe.

 

[LaFleche]

First thing I do is selecting and marking the eggs I want her to hatch, giving them all at the same time to avoid staggered hatch.
Then treating the broody for internal and external parasites to make sure she will not be forced to abandon the clutch because of parasite infestation.
Then I make sure to clean out the nest and fill it up with fresh bedding and some dried lavender to stave off mites, fleas and lice.
If the broody does not leave the nest at least every other day, I will carefully remove her from the nest every day and put her outside in front of feed and water to encourage her to eat, drink, defecate and dust bath. After 15-20 minutes she will go back on her nest by herself.

After 7-10 days I candle the eggs to remove any that are not developing or have stopped to develop.
On days 18 another candling session while the broody is off the nest. Remove any that may have died.

For the following days I do not lift the broody off the nest as she will be in 'lockdown' and totally focused on the movements inside and sounds coming from the eggs.
But she will be able to get off on her own in case of digestive emergency, so she will not be forced to poop in the nest as can happen when locking them in.

 

[FunClucks]

How I "fenced" off my broody in my covered run. She's brooding in the red bucket. She has food and water in with her. I took chicken wire, zip-tied it to stakes, the pallet, the wall of the covered run, and put a piece of firewood and carabiners on the edge that came up for us to fill the food and water. Had to crawl inside to check eggs, but it worked for us.

 

[gimmie birdies]

I had a BLRW and she was fat and lazy, I called her blob. Sitting on eggs for her was no problem. But when the eggs hatched she squished babies. Also she would abandon them to get back on her nest. I decided to raise them myself.

 

[LaFleche]

I had a BLRW and she was fat and lazy, I called her blob. Sitting on eggs for her was no problem. But when the eggs hatched she squished babies. Also she would abandon them to get back on her nest. I decided to raise them myself.

Did she leave the nest regularly to defecate and exercise her legs?
I found it very important for them to get their daily exercise as without they may not be able to push themselves up properly to give more room for the hatching chicks.

 

[FunClucks]

I had a BLRW and she was fat and lazy, I called her blob. Sitting on eggs for her was no problem. But when the eggs hatched she squished babies. Also she would abandon them to get back on her nest. I decided to raise them myself.

Not all birds do all aspects of motherhood well. Most breeds are not bred for this nowadays, and each bird is an individual. I had one broody who sucked at it and one who was awesome, which were both contrary to their breed reputations. You never know until you let them try how they'll do.

 

[TheChickenGirl16]

Thank you everyone for all of the advice!!!

Last year my oldest hen successfully hatched a clutch of 13. I had let her stay in the tire/nest until 3 chicks had hatched, and 4 more eggs had pipped, then snuck in after dark and moved her and the rest of the eggs to the other run. The rest hatched from there.
The only difference this year is that I already have chicks in there. I am currently making plans to maybe divide the run in half so there will be plenty of room for her and her babies.

Thanks again for all the help! I really appreciate advice from everyone, especially those of you who have had chickens longer than the 3 years I have.

p.s.
Brooding in a bucket?…. Genius!!!
That’s awesome, FunClucks!

 

[LaFleche]

Let us know how she gets along!