Help!!! Mandie experts. Will my mandie hen go broody?

[chickensioux]

My mandie has 5 eggs in her mandie box (finally). It took forever for her to figure that box out. She kept laying her eggs anywhere, on the ground, etc. Now there are 5 eggs in the box. Last night when I went to lock everybody up for the night, she was sitting on the eggs in the box but came out when I went up there. She is not on them this morning. Will she ever sit and stay? What is their behavior? Will she come out during the day and sit at night? Help! I'm a newbie at mandies!!! I would like for her to hatch these babies instead of an incubator. Thanks in advance.

 

[chickenlisa]

My Mandie girl did that too( come and go a lot from her nestbox) until she had at least 8 eggs in there. I've hardly seen her since last week now, and I don't know how many eggs there are for sure. I know when I last counted, there were 8, but I don't want to upset her nest by digging around and getting a precise count. I'll let her figure it all out and check once she's done....3 weeks to go now...

Good Luck with yours- I'd let her do her thing and just watch and pay attention in case she does sit and then abandon them. That sometimes happens and then you have to rescue the eggs if you want them to hatch (in your bator.)

 

[1lpoock]

My mandarin took forever to lay 6 eggs in a nest and never sat so I put them in the incubator... They turned out to be infertile. Now she has two more eggs in the same nest, I think I'm going to keep taking her eggs and incubating them. I'm sure yours will sit once she gets a big enough clutch. My wood duck hen is sitting and I barely ever see her out of the box.