Can broody hens lay?

[maceleneo]

Oh it is the hardest part indeed, but I'll try my best! Thank you for helping!

 

[Erinnlyn]

Hi, in the last days my OE Edgar went broody. I let her sit on wood eggs for a couple of days and on Monday I marked 10 eggs, gave them to her and I tried to let her in the nest she chose in the main coop, but she's low rank and other hens kept harassing her because she was occupying their favorite nest, so I moved her in a little pad where I sometimes keep broody hens. Everything went smooth, she keeps sitting on the eggs and she seems super broody. Here she is: she's all puffy and hates everyone in the world (but her eggs!)!View attachment 3456377
This morning I noticed she didn't touch the food, so I put her outside to let her stretch her legs, hoping she would eat and drink, poo and everything. This has always worked with my previous broodies. Well, she didn't. She sat where I put her for a while and then went right back in her nest, where I noticed that eggs are now 11! How is this possible? I thought broody hens couldn't lay, can they? I'm 100% sure that's her egg: she's the only one who lays that color and this pad is separated from other hens. Is it possible that she wanted hatch her own egg? I know this sounds stupid, but I don't know what to think. Maybe broody hens who lay are more common than I thought, but I never heard about it! View attachment 3456393

How is this going? Did anything hatch? I am interested because I am going through a similar situation with a broody right now for the first time! Other hens are adding eggs every day!

 

[Ponypoor]

I really hope she'll stop laying and spare her resources. I wouldn't know what to do with semi-brooded eggs when the first clutch hatches if she leaves the nest with her chicks and there are no other broodies!
This morning she finally ate something, pooped and even dustbathed. Eggs are still 11, I guess I leave her quiet for a couple of days: she has food and water in her pad (far from the nest, so she needs to stand up to drink and eat), she just doesn't seem to move if I don't take her off the nest: in the pad I couldn't find any feces, but the nest is clean, so maybe she knows what she's doing!

I take my broodies off the nest every day to eat poop and drink, sometimes they will dust bath in the sand box. Then they run like crazy back to their nest

Once they go broody I have not had them lay eggs, but I have had other hens visit their nest and gift them an egg - bad hens!

 

[maceleneo]

She only layed that egg and then stopped (no one could visit that nest, so I'm sure it was hers).

 

[maceleneo]

How is this going? Did anything hatch? I am interested because I am going through a similar situation with a broody right now for the first time! Other hens are adding eggs every day!

Hi, sorry I just read this message. Sadly she abandoned her eggs on the fifteenth day when temperatures dropped and I don't have any incubator, so I couldn't save the eggs How did it go with your broody?

 

[Shadrach]

Yes, broody hens can and do lay eggs. It's quite common but...
Some hens egg laying cycle switches off within a few hours of them sitting on the clutch. However, not all hens egg laying cycles swtiche off immediately. The hens I've known that continue to lay eggs while sitting may lay for up to two more days and then switch off.
A further possibility is a hen may act as if she is broody but not be fully commited. Sometimes you can tell this by the amount of time they are off the nest. An hour off the next is common with free rangers ime but when it gets to two or three hours it's time to question whether the hen is or isn't going to sit in earnest.

 

[Erinnlyn]

Mine got up as well at about 7 days. Someone told me to be prepared for her not to do a great job being so young and being her first time. She started getting up more, which I didn't worry too much about, but then she started spending most of the day off the nest. After that, I determined she was really done. It was at about this point, her comb was looking dull and her face looked pale, so I'm glad for her sake that she did get up.

 

[maceleneo]

Oh that's disappointing! Where I live winter seems to be back, so I guess hens won't go broody for a while