Guaranteed to get you a broody or your money back!

[superchemicalgirl]

I have discovered the secret to getting broodies:

1. Buy an incubator
2. Put eggs in incubator
3. Wait one week
4. You'll have a broody

This has happened to me both times I've put eggs in my incubator! First it was my GLW (during the New Years Day hatch) and it was so cute (my first broody!) I let her sit, in December and January in Maine. She did an excellent job of preventing chick-sicles and I have 3 additional mutts now in the coop, they are 5 weeks old.

Now this time it's my banty (who decided to hatch along with my Trader Joe eggs). She has the amazing ability to steal eggs and cram them under her small body. Yesterday I removed her from the nest and she had 3 large fowl eggs, 1 banty egg and 2 golf balls under her. Today I found her with 7 large fowl eggs and 2 golf balls under there!!

Lord give me strength.

 

[Diamond Wire Farms]

I'm with you. I have 2 Brinsea's cooking and last night discovered a 6-month Buff Orp squared off in a nest box defending her stash. She went broody between morning and afternoon egg pick-ups!!!!! Bahhhh! I'm not even sure she's laid an egg yet. I will give her some banty eggs tonight if she is still at it.

 

[EmtheFishLady]

I thought this was Sourland putting an ad up for his services!

An incubator and a broody just means MORE eggs to hatch!

 

[peeplessinNC]

That is amazing and a hoot all at the same time! What I would like to know: how does a hen "steal" an egg or 7 and move it to her broody nesting place?

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I have no idea how she gets the owners of the eggs to give them up. You'll have to ask the little hussy. She does it while I'm at work:

I'm assuming others are laying in the other side of the nest box (as it's big enough to hold 2 large fowl chickens) and then she's gathering them up and sitting on them after they leave. However, my GLW was in a smaller (one chicken sized) nest box and she was on a white egg, 2 brown eggs and a green egg. None of which she laid.

 

[sourland]

Contact the Broody Magician- no charge. It's a service we gladly provide. I offer Gritsar as a reference.

do a little dance

n sing a little song

walla-

Scarey part is that if the GPS malfunctions they end up at Gritty's place.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:

Yep, I've tried the incubator trick. Sourland works much better, and easier too.

 

[gritsar]

Just went back and read....I've seen the hens move their eggs. Tucked under their necks, pressed close to their bodies. It's a hoot!

 

[gryeyes]

I watched my broody BO move her three eggs OUT of the nest box (she was brooding in high summer) over the lip of the nest box so she could set on them and spread herself out a bit more in order to shed heat. A few days later, she had them back in the nest box again. To move them out, she tucked her beak over and under the egg, pulled it back into her breast, and waddled over the lip of the nest box all bent over. Then she let the egg go in a depression in the pine shavings and went back for another one.

I was SO amazed. I had wondered about the golf balls being moved around before then, and now I knew how they did it.

 

[Momo]

Wow - that's something I'd love to see! I wonder if it's ever been caught on film...