Broody with eggs

[Portia]

I have 2 verified broodies and possibly a 3rd (love my speckled sussex and salmon favorelles). Little speck is always my first verified broody of the season and occasionally I'll get 2 hatch/raises out of her; she's the best mama hen I have, very doting and will stay with the chicks until they are 5-6 weeks. She is sitting on a batch of araucana's. Little Tse is my salmon favorelle, this will be her first season. If I could only tell the favorelle eggs from the others I'd have her sitting on a batch of those, but it is sooo hard to tell. I think I'm going to get her a set of turkey eggs to hatch out for me. If she proves to not be the best of mama's, Little Speck will adopt them in as she always has for any abandon chick. So we'll see what we get. I'm close to full capacity for chickens, so expect that if these eggs hatch out that there will be some availability! Wish the girls luck

 

[mikden]

Good Luck with your broodies.... Sounds like you have a vvveeerrryyy busy spring coming.... How late in the season do you let little speck try her second hatch? I have a 3 year old Buff Orp that is insanely broody due to hatch starting today, unfortunately I was to dense for the past 2 years to give her what she wanted...peeps to mama. If she does as well as a mother as she has been a broody, then I'd like to give her another clutch later in the season. Thanks and good luck...

 

[Portia]

Around here she can easily hatch out through late september or so and still have time to raise them so they are 6 weeks or so old before the weather gets to yucky. I worry more about the early days of the hatch when I often have to help the chicks out/in the coop for the first week until they get the hang of the ramp. Unfortunately my mama's all tend to fly up to the roost next to the coop door vs. go up the ramp. The chicks just look up at them with a 'wow how'd you do that?' look on their faces until they start peeping their heads off. Then its running around with a net to gather them up and pop them in with her. So once they have the knack of getting in/out of the coop I don't have to watch over them except to count heads every now and then to see how many have gone 'missing'.