Hello all,
This week we got our first broody. She's a BR about 10 months old. The kids call her "Stripey." My 6-year-old daughter was the one to notice, actually, she's been out gathering the eggs lately and said on Tuesday "I think one of our hens is trying to hatch us some chicks! She's been sitting in the box since yesterday!"
I monitored for another couple days and sure enough she's steadfast in one of the nestboxes all day. But that was the problem -- she kept switching throughout the day. Get up, stretch her legs, take a drink, pick another clutch of eggs to sit on.
We have wire-framed nestbox with six compartments. This hen is so devoted she stuck her head through the wire and was trying desperately to roll an egg from the adjacent box, through the wires, into hers so she could sit on it! Had to help the poor gal get her head out of the wire.
We do want to have her hatch us some chicks so I decided today to get her own place setup. We have some 10-week-old pullets and bantams I've been keeping in a separate area of the coop, decided to let them into the flock today and put the broody in there by herself. A little young to be introducing to the older ones but they are getting big fast -- some of the pullets are already nearly the size of my RIR's already. I'm a bit worried about the little banties but I'll be sure to give them plenty of extra feed for awhile so they're not competing with the bigger ones for food.
I did not refrigerate any eggs collected yesterday and today, and hand-picked ten well-shaped, normal-sized clean ones for her to sit on. We've got four active roosters and twenty hens, hopefully they are all fertile. I moved the broody after dark tonight to her new place, fresh & clean, and sat her in a wooden nestbox there on top of the ten eggs. Glad I wore gloves she was pretty cranky about me picking her up to move her. It wasn't more than a few seconds and she was rolling them around to get them situated underneath her! Once she got "settled" there was still one sticking out the side, I just grabbed it and left her with nine, figured maybe ten was too many for her to cover? Amazing how "fat" they can spread out when sitting on a clutch!
I took the five she was sitting on in the old nestbox and candled them just to see how they were doing, knowing they were probably no good since she kept swapping boxes throughout the day. Two blood spots and three looked undeveloped. Strangely enough there was dried yolk/eggwhite all over them but no broken shells to be found anywhere. We have one egg eater in the flock (haven't identified her yet) I think she must have gotten after one of them while the broody was gone.
Anyway, sorry for the long post but we're excited to have a broody cook us up some fresh chicks, just wanted to tell my story and look for any suggestions? She has her own food (chick starter) and water in with her of course. Does it sound like I'm doing everything right? This forum has been invaluable for research on this type of thing, wouldn't have known the first thing to do about this without BYC!
This week we got our first broody. She's a BR about 10 months old. The kids call her "Stripey." My 6-year-old daughter was the one to notice, actually, she's been out gathering the eggs lately and said on Tuesday "I think one of our hens is trying to hatch us some chicks! She's been sitting in the box since yesterday!"
I monitored for another couple days and sure enough she's steadfast in one of the nestboxes all day. But that was the problem -- she kept switching throughout the day. Get up, stretch her legs, take a drink, pick another clutch of eggs to sit on.
We have wire-framed nestbox with six compartments. This hen is so devoted she stuck her head through the wire and was trying desperately to roll an egg from the adjacent box, through the wires, into hers so she could sit on it! Had to help the poor gal get her head out of the wire.
We do want to have her hatch us some chicks so I decided today to get her own place setup. We have some 10-week-old pullets and bantams I've been keeping in a separate area of the coop, decided to let them into the flock today and put the broody in there by herself. A little young to be introducing to the older ones but they are getting big fast -- some of the pullets are already nearly the size of my RIR's already. I'm a bit worried about the little banties but I'll be sure to give them plenty of extra feed for awhile so they're not competing with the bigger ones for food.
I did not refrigerate any eggs collected yesterday and today, and hand-picked ten well-shaped, normal-sized clean ones for her to sit on. We've got four active roosters and twenty hens, hopefully they are all fertile. I moved the broody after dark tonight to her new place, fresh & clean, and sat her in a wooden nestbox there on top of the ten eggs. Glad I wore gloves she was pretty cranky about me picking her up to move her. It wasn't more than a few seconds and she was rolling them around to get them situated underneath her! Once she got "settled" there was still one sticking out the side, I just grabbed it and left her with nine, figured maybe ten was too many for her to cover? Amazing how "fat" they can spread out when sitting on a clutch!
I took the five she was sitting on in the old nestbox and candled them just to see how they were doing, knowing they were probably no good since she kept swapping boxes throughout the day. Two blood spots and three looked undeveloped. Strangely enough there was dried yolk/eggwhite all over them but no broken shells to be found anywhere. We have one egg eater in the flock (haven't identified her yet) I think she must have gotten after one of them while the broody was gone.
Anyway, sorry for the long post but we're excited to have a broody cook us up some fresh chicks, just wanted to tell my story and look for any suggestions? She has her own food (chick starter) and water in with her of course. Does it sound like I'm doing everything right? This forum has been invaluable for research on this type of thing, wouldn't have known the first thing to do about this without BYC!
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