First time with broody hen

[sagealbright]

Hello!

Our lavender Orpington finally went broody. Today when I went out to check on her I noticed at least one of the babies has hatched. She is too aggressive to let me check for more and she hasn't left the nest yet. Should I leave the chick with her or take it? Will she stay and hatch the rest of them? Should I move her and the chicks out of the coop? We've only hatched chicks with an incubator before so I'm not sure what to expect.

 

[FoxyChicken]

Are you planning on letting her raise them? If so, just leave the chick with her. She'll get up and leave the nest when she's ready. They have a way of knowing when all of the viable eggs have hatched.
As for moving them out of the coop.... they SHOULD be okay, broody mamas are pretty protective, but I'd keep an eye on everybody just in case you do need to move them.
CONGRATULATIONS!!

In my opinion there is nothing sweeter than a broody mama and chicks

 

[sagealbright]

Are you planning on letting her raise them? If so, just leave the chick with her. She'll get up and leave the nest when she's ready. They have a way of knowing when all of the viable eggs have hatched. 
As for moving them out of the coop.... they SHOULD be okay, broody mamas are pretty protective, but I'd keep an eye on everybody just in case you do need to move them.
CONGRATULATIONS!!   In my opinion there is nothing sweeter than a broody mama and chicks 

Good to know! We will probably let her raise them. We have a lot of Hawks in our area. They got a few of our bantams over the past few weeks. So we will end up keeping the mom and chicks in the run during the day instead of letting them free range with everyone else. I'm just worried that only this one chick will hatch and be all alone. I think she's sitting on 6-8 eggs.

 

[sagealbright]

So we have had one chick hatch successfully! Another didn't make it and the mom kicked the dead one out of the nest. She was still sitting on 5 eggs. I candled them and found that two of them are duds. The other three don't look to be as far along in their incubation. I would say they're at about day 12-14. Is it okay that she's still sitting on them? We moved her into the garage with the chick and remaining eggs. She's still sitting on them.

 

[FoxyChicken]

Did you put them all under her at the same time? If so, then those two may be quitters. But if you put those eggs under her after she had already been sitting on the ones that hatched then maybe they are still developing.
As long as she's still sitting on them and the one chick has food and water close by, I guess let her keep sitting!
I'm no expert though, I just let a broody hatch for the first time this spring. She had 8 eggs and after four hatched she got off the nest on her own. I cracked the remaining ones open and they weren't developing, so somehow she must have known that.

 

[sagealbright]

Did you put them all under her at the same time? If so, then those two may be quitters. But if you put those eggs under her after she had already been sitting on the ones that hatched then maybe they are still developing. 
As long as she's still sitting on them and the one chick has food and water close by, I guess let her keep sitting! 
I'm no expert though, I just let a broody hatch for the first time this spring. She had 8 eggs and after four hatched she got off the nest on her own. I cracked the remaining ones open and they weren't developing, so somehow she must have known that. 

We didn't put the eggs under her. A few of our girls take turns in the same nest box. They were very angry when she starting sitting and they couldn't go in there to lay. I'm wondering if two hens went in at some point when she got off the eggs and laid. I noticed that whenever she would leave the nest to eat that another hen would be on the eggs. Because of this I didn't even know how many eggs she was sitting on until I moved her and the chick. I guess I'll keep candling the remaining eggs for a few days and see if they make any progress. It seems weird that only one egg would hatch. I'm excited to see how this chick looks when it gets older. Right now it's all black so I'm assuming it's from our Black Astroloup or black Cochin hen. It will either be mixed with Silkie or Cochin frizzle!