Do hens begin to brood on the first day of laying?

[19Chicks]

We are beginners!

With 19 chicks (hint: username). Suppose to be 18 but got an extra! We wanted nothing but hens... sadly, we got 2 roosters, we think. Well, we are kind of positive that one of our Easter Egger is one but not so sure about our Brahma. Quick question, Do you all know of a good place to go to for the gender? Im 16 but Im the one that knows everything about chickens so far. I do all the research and everything! However, my parents make the call of if it goes or not.

So I did some extensive research and found out that it is perfectly okay to eat an egg that is fertilized if it is taken the first day. Yet, it also said, dont take the eggs if the mother is brooding!

Now, does it take a while for the hen to start brooding?
Could I just shew it away the first day? Why do I need to not eat it if its brooding? Is it only in some hens that brood? Will she have a sad time dealing with this and become unhappy?
I know they aren't the smartest animals but I figured they might be sad.
So that concludes my worries. Please help me! Im desperate to convince my parents. My Brahma is so fun and stands out the most over all of the chickens! My Easter Egger is shy and doesn't interact but I still like it. I mean, I'd hate to leave a place that I'm used to!
Of course it would be sad to eat an egg that could turn into a chick... but it would also be sad to leave a chicken with a complete stranger who is not used to the environment.
Help is needed here!
Any tips for eating eggs that are fertilized (well I mean, it wont be if I take it the first day, right?)
Refrigerate it immediately, anything else?

Thank you all so much! Hope everybody has lovely, healthy chickens!

 

[dainerra]

brooding means that she has decided to hatch chicks. That means she will be sitting on her nest 24/7 (minus potty breaks). Most hatchery birds don't go broody very often since that isn't going to be producing any eggs.

You will know when/if you get a girl who decides to go broody.

Also, on the fertilized eggs, even if you miss a day of gathering you don't have to worry about eating the eggs. There are a LOT of people who never put eggs in the fridge. It takes time under a broody hen (much hotter than room/coop temperature) for an egg to start to develop.

 

[HEChicken]

Congrats on the chicks! For gender, if you post pictures of them here, there are a lot of experienced people who can give you an educated guess on their gender. Just be sure to include their age at the time the pictures were taken!

Some hens never go broody, as that is a trait that has been bred out of many breeds. A hen who is broody will not lay eggs so egg produces don't encourage broodiness in favor of getting more eggs.

Even among hens who go broody, it rarely happens the same day they start to lay. I had one hen who was 17 months old and had been laying a year when she went broody for the first time. More recently I had a hen go broody after laying just 29 eggs, so it is quite variable.

Fertilized eggs will NOT develop into chicks unless they have been kept consistently at a high enough temperature for egg development to occur. So if you are gathering eggs daily - or even if you skip a day - if the hen is not sitting on them, they will not develop and will be perfectly fine to eat.

As for if a brooding hen will be sad if you take her eggs away, I kind of agree with you. I don't have the heart to tell a broody hen she can't sit so whenever I have a hen go broody, I give her a few eggs to sit on. There is nothing to beat watching a mother hen raise a batch of chicks! They may not experience sadness in the same way we do, but when hormones tell them to sit, they can be very determined and won't give up being broody even if they are not sitting on eggs. I've heard of broody hens sitting on golf balls or walnuts, turning them religiously, trying to hatch out little walnut-lets.