Sitting/Broody strategy.
I have six coops here at the moment, four of which are living coops (large enough to sleep a tribe of 4 or 5 medium sized chickens) two outside hospital/maternity coops (suitable for one hen with small with young chicks, or cock for a short period of time) and an egg box in my house which is accessible throughout the day. Each tribe has its own coop. The larger coops have double egg/nesting boxes.
Having chickens day time free ranging often means a hen will lay her eggs away from a coop and when she goes broody, sit on them. Here, this isn’t safe. There are too many predators for a hen to sit for 25 days undetected by a predator. (21 days for hatching and 4 days until the chick is able to follow the hen back to the tribe, roughly)
Other hens lay in a nest/egg box in one of the coops, including the hospital/maternity units, and the nest box in my house.
All of the hens here have become broody at some point in the last seven years except a hen called Gedit who doesn’t lay eggs and a Maran called Mora. Some hens become broody more often than others.
Since introducing a multi coop where each tribe has its own coop, every hen has tried to return to the tribe coop with her chicks at some point.
What I’ve found interesting is the different strategies the hens adopt to maximise the chances of their chicks survival and integration into the tribe.
There have been occasions when the hen has been killed by a predator before she has returned to the tribe coop with her chicks. If the chicks survive without their mother then these chicks tend to form another tribe. Most don’t survive long enough to reach adulthood.
There have been occasions when the chicks aren’t the progeny of the senior cock in the tribe and these chicks also tend to form another tribe if they survive. On the two occasions this has happened the mother has returned to the tribe without her chicks, or has tried to return with the chicks but the chicks haven’t been accepted into the tribe and were driven out.
The strategy at the point of sitting can be divided into two classes, those who lay and sit in the tribe coop and those who lay and sit outside.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both strategies and it seems the status of the hen in the tribe may have some influence on which strategy she adopts.
The advantages of laying and sitting in the tribe coop are:
Safety: the risk of discovery be predators except human is low.
Shelter; outside the elements can destroy a nest site. On a couple of occasions when a hen had chosen to sit on a bank, the entire site was washed away in a storm.
Easy access to food, water and dust bathing:
The coops are close to feeding points and popular dust bath locations.
There is no need to ’introduce’ the chicks to the tribe and the cock is more likely to imprint the chicks at an earlier stage. This in theory at least means the chicks are more likely to get some security from moving with the tribe at an earlier stage but this doesn’t always happen.
There are many advantages for the keeper of the hen that lays and sits in a coop.
You can monitor their condition and progress and it gives you control over how many eggs if any the hen sits on. This can be very important if you have limited coop space.
Some of the hens here, particularly the Marans seem to have lost the instinct to get off the eggs daily for food water and bathing. I’ve had to lift the hens off the eggs and provide food and water and, this is very important for a sitting hens health, make a dust bath and make sure they use it.
The Marans here are prone to tendon strain when sitting. They find it difficult to sit on top of the eggs and support their weight. What happens is they spread the eggs around their body and try to get their bodies as close to the eggs as possible. This tends to splay their legs and long periods of time in this position has given two hens here a permanent limp.
The disadvantages are:
Other hens may lay in the tribe coop and in the same nest box as the sitting hen. This can cause egg breakages and competition over who should sit on the eggs.
Human egg predation: it’s a lot easier for humans to collect the eggs. It’s would be interesting to know if the hen is aware of this risk. When I have taken the eggs at various points during the 21 days the hen lays her eggs somewhere else for a period of time but often returns to laying in the coop at a later date.
Hygiene and health risks: I clean the coops in rotation but even in say five or six days the accumulation of dust, feather and shit when five chickens roost in a coop is considerable.
Attention from cockerels from other tribes. In general the cocks tend to leave sitting hens alone, but recently I’ve had a couple of cockerels that bothered the sitting hen.
Heat stress: In mid summer it is often cooler under a bush or on an open bank in high grass that catches the breeze that blows up the valley, than it is in a coop.
The advantages of sitting outside:
Little risk of being discovered by humans.
Better nest sites: Nest boxes are fine for hens who lay eggs that you are going to take. For a hen that is broody and wants to sit, most egg boxes aren’t really satisfactory. Most chicken keepers have watch a hen make a nest site. They pick the site and scratch the ground. The ground scratching is to make a hollow in which to lay the eggs. This isn’t possible on a hard floor and if they haven’t scratched all the bedding out of the nest box while trying to make this hollow you end up with a bare patch of floor with what nesting material is left around the edges. It’s also very difficult for a hens feet to get a good grip on a hard floor and this makes posture and comfort an issue.
The best nest base material is earth, preferably with vegetation growing in and around the site.
The roots of the vegetation help hold the base soil together even though the vegetation itself might be destroyed in the scratching. Usually the hens here pick a spot with high grass or under a dense bush; this isn’t just for concealment, the ground retains moisture better and the hollow they dug retains it shape.
The unsuitability of wooden nest boxes for sitting hens drove me to experiment with ‘sitting boxes’.
They need to be strong because they’re filled to a depth of 6 inches with soil. They need to have high sides and a roof. I’ve found a circular opening in the front of the box does best at keeping the soil in. I’m still experimenting.
In the meantime the hospital coops I built have removable floors and this solves the hard floor problem but leaves the coop vulnerable to digging predators such as foxes. We don’t get many foxes here and those we do get are still human shy fortunately.
I’ve used one of the hospital coops without a floor a couple of times now and the hens seem to like it. It’s right outside my house, but even so I looking for a way to make it ‘dig proof’ and still be movable.
Less risk of other hens laying their eggs at that site and/or sitting competitions.
(It always amazes me how all the chickens here seem to know where everyone else is.0
Fewer problems from senior hens. There have been a few occasions when a junior hen in a tribe has been prevented from sitting in the tribe coop by a senior hen. The senior hen pecks the junior until she gets off the eggs.
The disadvantages of sitting outside should be obvious; predators.
Quite a few hens try to sit outside here. The fact that they survive a single night still surprises me.
I’m better at it now, but it’s taken me a two or three days to find some of the sitting hens.
You just can’t thoroughly search four acres of land here; much of it is on slopes covered with bushes and shrubs below trees. I’ve almost trodden on sitting hens in the past.
The hens that sit outside have so far thankfully all got of the eggs at some point in the day for food, water, and dust bathing. Often you can hear the hen, especially if she encounters other chickens, the clucking is incessant. The amount of time the hen spends off the eggs each day varies form hen to hen, but in general they’re off for longer in the first few days and given I'm outside a lot, I hear ,or see them and try to follow them back to the nest site when they return. Once the site is found I usually wait until dark and collect the hen and the eggs. As a rule I don’t let a hen that’s chosen an outside sitting site keep the eggs and then sit on those eggs in a coop. (there have been exceptions)
Those that try and sit in another tribes coop invariably get driven out by the senior hen of that tribe.
The most common situation with broody hens here is they lay and then in coop that isn’t their tribe coop, usually one of the hospital/maternity coops but sometimes in another tribes coop.
Since installing a nest box in my house, it’s become the favorite place to lay and sit for all the hens of Tribe 1.
The nest box has none of the attributes that are often sited as preferable to a hen.
It’s completely open. It’s off the ground. While the house is usually very quiet people do come and go. The rest of Tribe 1 are frequent visitors. I keep odd hours so rest times vary. I like music and while I use headphones when a hen is sitting the music can still be heard.
It seems that the hens believe it’s safe and this is the most important criteria for hens choosing nesting sites. Interestingly, what I consider safe and the hens consider safe is different.
This has most of the advantages of sitting in the coop of the tribe they belong to except one and that is at some point they will return to the tribe coop with the chicks. This I discovered is the most critical moment in the chicks lives.
For senior hens taking the kids home is less of a problem. They don’t have to worry about other hens aggressive behaviour to them or their chicks. They do still have to overcome the problem of persuading the chicks to enter the tribe coop. I’ve been told by other multi coop chicken keepers that if the chicks won’t enter the coop and the hen isn’t persistent in encouraging them, eventually the hen gives up and leaves the chicks to fend for themselves. Fortunately that hasn’t happened here, although I have had a hen just desert the chicks and move into another coop.
Different hens have different strategies for getting the chicks home. Some just march the chicks into the tribe home as soon as the chicks are mobile enough to make the journey. The chicks when they are that young just follow mum, and don’t yet seem to have any fear of new surroundings, or other chickens.
Older chicks can be more of a problem. They’ve had time to get used to the place they were hatched in and, being free range, often have some not so good experiences of the hens in the tribe.
Here the cocks have been far better behaved with young chicks then the hens.
Because the tribe coops are on legs here there is a ramp which must be climbed to enter the coop. This has proven to be a stumbling block for some chicks. Mum goes up the ramp and calls for the chicks and the chicks can hear her but can’t see her and often they gather underneath the coop where mums calls are coming from, but don’t climb the ramp.
Mum comes back out again and tries again. Often taking the chicks home is done at dusk when the rest of the tribe are on the perch and the coop has gone quiet. If the chicks won’t climb the ramp mum comes out and either returns with the chicks to the place they were hatched, or tucks the chicks under her wing and sits underneath the coop and would presumably stay there for the night.
With many of the hens, particularly those that take older chicks home you get warning trial runs. Sometimes the hen takes the chick to the location of tribe home on successive evenings, remaining close to the tribe home longer each time.
I’m always there when a hen takes her chicks back to the tribe coop.
Having spent too many hours waiting for chicks to work out how to climb the ramps I assist the hen these days. If none of the chicks go into the coop I wait to see if mum takes them back to the hatching site. If she does then we all try again the next time.
If one chick or some chicks go in and others won’t; that’s a problem. I’m told that’s it for the chicks outside. Mum doesn’t come back out for them usually. I’ve haven’t tested this.
I catch the chicks and put them in with mum. Of course the chicks give distress calls and mum comes out in full battle order. We’ve always got all the chicks even though I often receive a few cuts and peck marks for my trouble from mum.
