-she doesn't seem to have appetite and I know this is normal, but is there some particular food I should give her?
As they said, regular chicken feed. No treats. I'd want a feed with a minimum protein content of 16%, I would be OK with something as high as 22% protein for a broody.
Before a hen even starts laying she builds up extra fat. If you butcher hens or pullets that have started laying and compare them to cockerels or roosters the excess fat is really obvious. That fat is put there for the hen to live off of if she ever goes broody. That way she can stay on the nest instead of having to hunt for food. It's good for the hen to eat and drink, the fat lasts longer, but they don't need to eat much.
You may see her lose weight while broody. That's normal. That does not mean anything is wrong with her, she's just using fat put there for that reason.
-I read some threads about broody hens and seems that some people take the hen outside the nest once or twice a day to make sure she eats/drinks/poops while some other people let the hen decides... what should I do?
Whatever you feel like. I don't isolate mine but let them hatch with the flock. So I mark the eggs and check under her once a day to remove any that don't belong. Usually I just lift her up and look under her. Sometimes I take the broody off of the nest and put her on the coop floor. She tends to squat there for a bit then either runs off to take care of business or she moves back on the nest.
I've seen a hen leave her nest twice a day and spend an hour or more off the nest each time. I've seen a hen leave her nest once a day for about 15 minutes. Often I never see a hen off of the nest. Since I can tell she is not pooping in the nest on those daily egg checks I know she is coming off.
Since you have her confined you should be able to tell if she is coming off to poop. You can make decisions based on what you see or you can lift her off daily. It will not affect the hatch.
-should I candle the eggs at some point to remove bad ones?
Personally I never candle eggs under a broody. It's not convenient and candling is not required for the egg to hatch. I candle eggs in the incubator but tend to leave my broody hens as much alone as I can.
Candling is fun and can be educational. If you want to candle go for it. Nothing wrong with candling.
what should I do if they all seem to be bad? (I know it's premature, but let me feed my anxiety!)
Your eggs from the Marans should be fairly dark. Your eggs from the Araucana have that blue pigment through the thickness of the shell. Those can be hard to see inside, depending on how dark it is and how good your candler is. And it sounds like you don't have experience candling. I'd suggest being very reluctant removing any eggs due to your candling.
-while seeking info, I also read that broody hens speak to their eggs when they're about to hatch, have someone some article/reference about this topic? I would love to read about it!
I don't have any articles about it. After the chick internal pips and starts breathing air it can peep. If you tap on the incubator in this phase you can hear them. A broody hen will talk back, sort of a purr or a low level growl. Some people think that is part of their bonding, I'm not sure, could be true. I think it is the chick's way of telling the hen that it is on the way so she doesn't abandon the nest. Also, I've read that the hen can adjust humidity under her. I don't have any links to an article about that either, just something I read years ago. There is a very old thread on the forum where someone put a hygrometer under a broody hen and confirmed that for themselves. I think the chick talking to Mama helps prepare her to switch from incubating mode to hatching mode and ultimately to chick raising mode.
due to human selection many of them won't go broody anymore, I wasn't sure that they could actually manage all by themselves!
You do occasionally get a hen that is not a great broody but the vast majority of mine do everything they are supposed to. I feel my broodies know more by instinct than I will ever know.
I was saying olive egger just because as far as I know offspring should lay green eggs, but not all green eggs are olive. is this diagram somewhat reliable?
On a genetic level yes, but not on an individual chicken level. The blue shell gene is dominant so if a hen has just one blue shell gene in that gene pair she will lay a blue or green egg. But if she has only one blue shell gene she will randomly pass down one of those genes to her offspring. So about half of her pullets will get the blue shell gene from her, half will not. You cannot tell by looking at the egg if she has two blue shell genes or only one. That is where that chart fails. You don't know if a hen that lays a blue or green egg has one or two of those genes to pass down.
my rooster is a marans x araucana cross
This means he has one blue shell gene, not two, so half of his pullets will get the blue shell gene from him, half will not.
This means that with your Marans hens about half of the pullets should lay a brown egg, about half should lay a green egg, probably pretty dark. This is the odds for each pullet. It is very possible if you get three pullets from these eggs that all three may lay brown eggs or all three may lay green eggs. The actual odds are that 1 time in 8 you will get all brown eggs, 1 time in 8 you will get all green eggs, and 3 times in 4 you get at least one of each.
With your Araucana hens all these pullets should get a blue egg shell gene from their mother so all should lay green eggs. They may be a little lighter than you expect.
Another problem with the chart is that there are a lot of different genes that contribute tp what shade of brown you get. Green is brown on top of blue. Some of these genes are dominant, some are recessive. Others may only act if another specific gene is present. One is even sex linked, the pullets can get it from their father but not from their mother. One even bleaches brown eggs white. Some breeders put that in blue egg laying flocks to keep the eggs bluer.
What this means is that you never know which genetics the offspring will inherit. In general if the chicken hatches from a darker egg then it should get the genetics for darker eggs, so in general that part of the chart is correct. But occasionally you can get some real surprises as to how much brown actually shows up.
