Broody vs stuck egg

[Axalea]

Well, I have never had an egg bound bird either. I have a secret theory that egg bound can be caused by not enough exercise, if kept in too small of a set up. But it is just my theory.

As for a broody hen:

• nothing is more fun than a hen with chicks
• what is your climate? Winter?
• Are you getting fertile eggs from the old boy? Check while cooking to see if you have the bulls eyes.
• It sounds like you have some older birds, some younger birds which I think makes a healthier flock.
• Can you dispatch cockerels? When you hatch eggs, you get cockerels - last summer, my first hatch 100% cockerels later in the summer got 100% pullets - but the chance of extra roosters is real - and too many roosters cause a lot of problems.
• If you don't want to hatch for any reason - that is ok, but if not - do do the broody break - especially if you are in winter. Winter and being broody can be hard on them.

If you want to hatch some chicks - well that is a whole new post! haha - l love to hatch chicks - I only do small clutches.

Mrs K

I am extremely interested in hatching chicks, our gals never take a day off and always lay high quality brown eggs. They're our first flock ever and it seems their genetics are too good to pass up.

For instance it's been an average of 5° to 20° here the past two weeks in central Illinois and they have YET to stop laying. Almost ALL of our eggs have the bullseye our rooster is getting down it seems. As far as dispatching a rooster if hatched I plan on keeping 1-2 of them because our only rooster is very old and also has a very messed up leg which we're taking him to get looked at for soon

 

[Mrs. K]

Well, the problem with that is a lot of roosters do not turn out. So even if you plan to keep them, they might be aggressive, and you may get a lot more than two cockerels.

As you are in Illinois only set 4-5 eggs. Hatching in the winter, you don’t want to stress her or the chicks with keeping warm.

Good luck,