Sounds exactly how my Golden Comet acted when she went broody last June. And getting her some eggs to hatch was the best thing I've done - my 4 yr old daughter loved the whole experience. I got 10 fertile eggs from a friend (we didn't have a roo at the time) and she hatched out 8 (4 cockerels; 4 pullets) and faithfully tended to all the chicks. At the time we only had 4 laying hens. Against a lot of advice I read through on here, I left the girl to sit in the coop with everyone else. She'd usually get up from the nest for about an hour mid-morning to free range and again for about an hour in the evening. July 4 we woke up and were greeted that morning with the peeps of little chicks. Here again, going against what most said, I left the chicks in the coop with everyone else. From day one with the new chicks, I simply modified the coop - added a chick-friendly ramp - so that the chicks could go out and free range with Momma. I gave them access to chick starter feed, but from what I could tell Momma was finding most of what they ate out around the yard/garden. We ended up keeping all the chicks up until a few weeks ago. I have kept a roo and 1 pullet....the rest I ended up taking back to my friend's farm that I got the original fertile eggs from - bringing everything full circle I guess.
