So my little CL pullet is definitely broody. I have been pulling her off the nest each night and putting her on the roost and taking the eggs. By the afternoon she is back in the box sitting on eggs. I have some eggs coming in the near future and I am considering moving her to a spare coop and using her to brood the eggs when I get them.
I have never used a broody before and I am worried things will go wrong. It is possible she will no longer be broody by the time the eggs get here and I am fine with incubating. Just thought I might have a better chance using the real deal. What are other's experiences? Do you think this is a good idea? Are a dozen + eggs to too many?
So my little CL pullet is definitely broody. I have been pulling her off the nest each night and putting her on the roost and taking the eggs. By the afternoon she is back in the box sitting on eggs. I have some eggs coming in the near future and I am considering moving her to a spare coop and using her to brood the eggs when I get them.
I have never used a broody before and I am worried things will go wrong. It is possible she will no longer be broody by the time the eggs get here and I am fine with incubating. Just thought I might have a better chance using the real deal. What are other's experiences? Do you think this is a good idea? Are a dozen + eggs to too many?
So my little CL pullet is definitely broody. I have been pulling her off the nest each night and putting her on the roost and taking the eggs. By the afternoon she is back in the box sitting on eggs. I have some eggs coming in the near future and I am considering moving her to a spare coop and using her to brood the eggs when I get them.
I have never used a broody before and I am worried things will go wrong. It is possible she will no longer be broody by the time the eggs get here and I am fine with incubating. Just thought I might have a better chance using the real deal. What are other's experiences? Do you think this is a good idea? Are a dozen + eggs to too many?
keep track of the days in case she is too young and looses interest - (it's all hormones anyway) Have the incubator there as a back-up.
Make sure that the spare coop is predator proof.
It is nice if you can see that she actually gets daily feed and water -- DE, PDZ or something that will show her tracks to the feed is one good way. Some folks worry that they will get too worn down in the 3-weeks.
make sure it isn't too hot in your spare coop
Lucky you if she will do the incubating and brooding for you - get pictures and share with us. ;O)
Good luck.
KP - thanks for the numbers -- I have one that may be going broody......
Thanks Kpenley and Chickat! It would great if it all works out. The spare coop is super safe so I am not worried about that. I worry most about her just deciding she is done and not getting to the eggs in time. I have also heard horror stories about first timers killing the chicks when they hach.
I am pretty observant (and a worry wart!) and I am able to check on her multiple times a day through out.
So my little CL pullet is definitely broody. I have been pulling her off the nest each night and putting her on the roost and taking the eggs. By the afternoon she is back in the box sitting on eggs. I have some eggs coming in the near future and I am considering moving her to a spare coop and using her to brood the eggs when I get them.
I have never used a broody before and I am worried things will go wrong. It is possible she will no longer be broody by the time the eggs get here and I am fine with incubating. Just thought I might have a better chance using the real deal. What are other's experiences? Do you think this is a good idea? Are a dozen + eggs to too many?
Are the eggs going to be shipped? Personally, I do not use a broody to hatch shipped eggs because of their fragile air cells, hens don't know that they have to be super gentle with them and not turn them for the first 3 days, etc.
Are the eggs going to be shipped? Personally, I do not use a broody to hatch shipped eggs because of their fragile air cells, hens don't know that they have to be super gentle with them and not turn them for the first 3 days, etc.
I have had several broodies in the past few years...I think 6 times if I recall right? Three this last summer at any rate. Already had one this season.
-If you can, have her in her own pen. The other hens will try to lay in her nest which will disrupt her and she may get on the wrong nest if there are multiple nest boxes. They also stir the eggs more and the scuffles will lead to broken eggs.
-I was afraid that they would not get off the nest but realized that you can tell by looking for her poop--a broody saves it up then takes a ginormous toilet break that is easily twice as big as a normal chicken dropping--so look for that. You may want to put out extra water and feed so she has access if the other chickens are penned with her.
-Invariably an egg will break in the nest and I have found that the fewer the eggs the higher chances of having an egg break (sad for the egg plus you get egg innerds all over the remaining eggs and stuck eggshell on the hen-yuk). I would go with a minimum of 6 but they can easily cover a dozen. My hens seem to think their nest is full when there are 8 in there.
-I would also recommend not putting the shipped eggs under her if you can avoid it. Some chickens stir the eggs with their feet under their flattened bodies and some really only turn them when they are off the nest, so the amount of abuse the eggs get varies from hen to hen.
-The hens seem to stick to the nest for several days after the chicks hatch probably waiting for stragglers and also waiting for her chicks to get stronger, so there is an opportunity to graft more chicks under her during this period. I set food an water next to her that the chicks can reach if they start becoming adventuresome:
Here is my latest, Dijon. She sneaked into the loft and laid 8 eggs (I added 4 to her 8 so she incubated 12). She hatched 4 but only 2 made it past day 3 and are doing great. I put food there for the chicks and as you can see she helpfully pulled the food into the nest overnight so the little ones could have breakfast in bed while waiting on their sibs to hatch
After several iterations of having broken eggs and broodies ending on the wrong nest, I have an alternative plan that seems to have worked for me. I incubate the majority of eggs in my incubator with some under the broody assuming that I will not hatch 100%. After they start hatching, I transfer dried/fluffed chicks that are males to under the broody so she can raise them and I remove any dried/fluffed females from under the broody so I can hand raise them.
warning: Avoid difficult/feral broodies if you can. The ones raised by broodies tend to be more aloof since they are not used to being handled (friendly but may panic of you try to pick them up) and can be downright flighty and feral if your broody is aloof as they learn that humans are scary and need to be avoided. Last year I let a Cream Legbar raise her clutch and one of the females is wary and one is really feral/panics at the sight of me and I had to cull the male--he is the only CL male I have ever raised that I culled for aggression. I am sure he thought I was a predator and felt threatened. I had my docile and sweet Salmon Faverolles raise 6 boys last year and they are all great. They avoid me if I am close, are great with the females and never once have given me the stink eye. Ideal roos IMO and I think its because they learned from their mom that humans are good. So much of their behavior is learned from their mamas!
Thanks again for the added replies. I hadn't really considered that broody raised babies are less social. Makes sense but I really don't like flighty/feral birds. She is a super social bird but still I need to consider this. The idea of her raising the boys and raising the girls by hand is a good one.
I have a great space to put here where she won't be bothered at all. This coop is ultimately where these babies will live so it works out great.
And these eggs are all shipped. I was hoping since hatch rates on shipped eggs are so poor through incubation that a broody would be more successful. It doesn't sound like that is the case. I guess I really need to think about this and will most likely opt out. Shoot! I was hoping this would be a good option.
I put 4 CL eggs shipped from Texas to Michigan under my Silkie broody and she hatched 3 out of 4. If you're confident in your broody, I'd recommend giving her a chance.
I'm fairly new to chicken breeding, not an expert by any means. Please keep that in mind.
Last week I pulled some eggs from my incubator for my good Silkie broody. Although all six had been in the incubator the same amount of time, two candled vigorous, two a bit behind them in development, and two candled inconclusively. (I stink at candling.)
The second day she kicked out the inconclusives. I was pretty sure they weren't good anyway.
The third day she kicked out the two that were less developed. I candled them several times that day and there was no movement. I think the hen knew they were dead.
My conclusion is that the hen knows what she's doing. Not positive, of course, but it looks that way.
On a different note, I had a first-time broody (not CL) attack three just-hatched chicks, killing two of them.
And I had a good first-time broody (a Silkie) abandon her following year's nest. I'm not sure why.
On another note, both Silkie hens were happy to adopt a bunch of week-old chicks, even though neither was broody at the time. I just plopped the chicks in front of them, watched, and the hens tucked them under their wings and raised them well.
I have a new pullet laying! Finally, as these young ones are already 7.5 ish months old. This is the second egg I found and I thought OH I should save these and hatch them. Then I promptly remembered I hadn't changed the young pullets pens and they are still in the Silkie pen, which is exactly where I found the egg lol. I got too excited and didn't even remember about the Silkies. I will adjust these young pullets pens this week and add them in with the other CLs.
Though Cream Legbar X Silkie does sound kind of cute
