First Broody Hen in Winter??

[Oolala]

As I mentioned earlier, my girls went to bed soaking wet this evening and temperatures are dropping right down tonight, how do they manage to dry off and not freeze

 

[staceyj]

Hello, I was looking at this thread and stopped when I noticed you know a lot about natural hatches (broody mama raising chicks). I am going to wait for one of my pullets to go broody this spring (and stay broody for at least a week) and then slip some fertilized polish eggs under her, since I can't have/don't want a rooster. I have a silkie Cochin cross chick that is about 5-7 weeks old. She probably will not be the mother unless nobody else goes broody before her. Whoever completes the test of staying broody for a week first wins the fertilized eggs. We DO have Buff Orpingtons that are already 4 months, so if not the silkie Cochin cross chick, at least one of them will.

Ok now I feel like this is getting long, so what I'm asking is do you think the Buff Orpingtons would be able to go broody and be successful as a mom THIS SPRING/SUMMER. The orps will start laying eggs around Jan-Feb so is this possible? I don't have an incubator and will ONLY buy the eggs if they are broody for a week.

Chiming in just to say
Oh yes.
If my buff is any indication you'll have no probs on that.
I have 1+\- 9 mos old
Who's already been broody TWICE!

 

[ChickenGirl555]

Chiming in just to say
Oh yes.
If my buff is any indication you'll have no probs on that.
I have 1+\- 9 mos old
Who's already been broody TWICE!

Oh good!!! I have 7 girls and 1 roo chick (that we’ll get rid of in spring so that will free up space) and I’m getting 2 eggs. Do you know if MyPetChicken.Com is good for shipping? Nobody around me sells polish fertilized eggs, only chicks.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Chiming in just to say
Oh yes.
If my buff is any indication you'll have no probs on that.
I have 1+\- 9 mos old
Who's already been broody TWICE!

Holy shoot! I've never had any bird but a cochin do that!

 

[pasuit]

As I mentioned earlier, my girls went to bed soaking wet this evening and temperatures are dropping right down tonight, how do they manage to dry off and not freeze

 

[staceyj]

Oh good!!! I have 7 girls and 1 roo chick (that we’ll get rid of in spring so that will free up space) and I’m getting 2 eggs. Do you know if MyPetChicken.Com is good for shipping? Nobody around me sells polish fertilized eggs, only chicks.

That I can't help you with. My 3 came from MmcM as part of a group order last February. They are darling and I personally think they're beautiful but (lol)not nearly perfect enough to be show birds.

 

[aart]

As I mentioned earlier, my girls went to bed soaking wet this evening and temperatures are dropping right down tonight, how do they manage to dry off and not freeze

If you go in and put your hand under their feathers,
right next to their skin I think you'll find they are dry under there.

 

[pasuit]

I don't know for sure but I know they're able to regulate they're body temps by flapping they're wings. At least I think I read that somewhere. I actually dried one off with a hair dryer. Don't know if thats a good idea but it worked.

 

[Oolala]

I don't know for sure but I know they're able to regulate they're body temps by flapping they're wings. At least I think I read that somewhere. I actually dried one off with a hair dryer. Don't know if thats a good idea but it worked.

I did try drying them off a little with tissues but they didnt like that too much, I suppose once they all snuggle up together their combined body heat will help, they sleep on a bed of straw as they dont like a roost

 

[sylviethecochin]

As I mentioned earlier, my girls went to bed soaking wet this evening and temperatures are dropping right down tonight, how do they manage to dry off and not freeze

Is their underfluff wet, or just their top feathers? Skin-damp is a lot worse than feather damp.

You can dry a chicken with a hair-dryer (my rooster nearly melted in my lap when I did this) That said, you may blow out your hair dryer on three chickens. It took me an hour to dry Chester off thoroughly. Looked good a week later--no ruffled feathers, everything was shiny and his skin wasn't dry--so I counted it a success and an "I would do this again")

I've also buried wet chickens in hay. They seemed to come out alright.