Can two hens brood together??

[detroit313]

I had never seen or heard of this before so I quickly took a pic.

I had one broody on her eggs for two days so I decided to leave the brooder open incase she wanted some fresh air. Then I saw her wandering around and decided to go check on the eggs and to my surprise there was another hen on them. BROODY!! I thought "oh no, she kicked the other one out" so I put the original one in there so she can kick out the intruder lol. But I came back a few minutes later and they were both on the eggs. Lol this was too odd for me

question: should I let them brood together? there are 12-15 eggs under there. Will this provoke rivalry or fighting between the two hens. They are sister so idk if this has anything to do. And if I do let them brood together should I put more eggs under there to get a higher hatch rate? They are both RIR bantams.

And what if I leave the brooder open so there could be 3 broodies?!?! lol definitely something to think about.

 

[chicks4kids]

I've never had it happen to me personally but there have been MANY threads on 2 hens sitting on one nest or swip/swapping nests throughout the brood...so yes, it can happen!

 

[chicks4kids]

Personally, I would put up a divider and seperate them, that way there is no competition, no shuffling around of the eggs, etc.....just what I would do

 

[TheRanch]

I had a broody Maran sitting on about 20 eggs (we added to her supply), a couple of days later another maran joined her and they've been together ever since, they take turns getting food and water - and sttrrretch those wings and fluff the feathers to cover them all - they are so cute. We are letting nature take it's course and so far so good. Our roo keeps everyone away from his girls and stands guard....

 

[wendzgirls]

I had 3 silkies go broody together and they did great. I tried a couple of times to separate them, would go back into the coop and they had rolled the eggs back so that they were all sitting together. I finally just left them alone. They hatched 11 out of 12 eggs, they all mothered them and it was just like a community effort. The chicks just thought they had 3 mothers. They are 5 weeks old and doing great. I would just leave them alone, even though they may steal the other ones eggs from time to time,it all seems to work itself out.

 

[thornwing]

I had two hens of mine do it too, they even raised the chicks together and did fine! One would get more attention from the chicks than the other, it was funny, one would go and find food and call for the chicks and she'd turn around to see them all over the other hen with food, then she'd race back and try to get close with them again, eventually she kinda gave up and the hen that got more attention took on full responsibility.

 

[modenacart]

We had two hens sit on the same eggs. They would move the eggs around, but they seemed ok with sharing. When the chicks hatched it was nice for there to be two mamas because one could take a break and go eat in the yard while the other guarded the chicks.

 

[4dabirds]

We had a couple of banty hens share a nest this spring.
They hatched out 15 banty and large hen eggs. We took the chicks as they hatched and put them in a brooder. One of the hens left the box when all was hatched and the other one moved over to another box and started setting on diferant eggs. Shes still there and we are expecting more chicks nextweek.

 

[Panhanle RIR]

Quote:
Where in the panhandle are you from

do you hatch out silkies