If she is indeed broody and you have a cock/erel (and thus fertile eggs) or you can get some fertile eggs and you want some more chick(en)s,
then she can hatch some for you no matter the time of year. I had one hatch out last Feb just fine, tho it increased my chores to keep them in liquid water.
But there are many aspects to managing a broody hen......
.....and think first about
o you have room for more birds, and what will you do with the 'extra' males?
I've broken 2 broody hens...My experience went like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop and I would feed her some crumble a couple times a day.
I let her out a couple times a day and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two.
Water nipples bottle was added after pic was taken.
then she can hatch some for you no matter the time of year. I had one hatch out last Feb just fine, tho it increased my chores to keep them in liquid water.
But there are many aspects to managing a broody hen......
.....and think first about
o you have room for more birds, and what will you do with the 'extra' males?I've broken 2 broody hens...My experience went like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop and I would feed her some crumble a couple times a day.
I let her out a couple times a day and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two.
Water nipples bottle was added after pic was taken.
