Hen laid eggs and is still sitting but the eggs are gone!?!

[hikerchick]

She got off the nest to eat and I peeked in and I don't see a single egg. Either she really buried them in the straw or she has lost her mind. This is my first hen.Is this normal? She is spending the whole day on an empty nest.

 

[schmije]

Sounds like you might have a broody hen. Is she sleeping in the box at night? Ours will sit even when there's nothing in the box when they're brooding. There's a wealth of information on this site for how to break a broody hen if that's what you want to do. Some people like to take advantage of the situation and give her some fertilized eggs or day-old chicks to raise.

 

[hikerchick]

Thanks. I don't want to break her. I just wondered if she knew her eggs were gone..and where did they go? But I guess that is another topic.

I would put eggs under her if I had another hen laying them.

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

if you put chicks under her she needs to be broody for at least 2 weeks, to keep her broody use wood eggs or golf balls, she should stay broody for 4 weeks if it takes you that long to find chicks, I've a hen that went broody mid Jan and stayed that way till 2 days ago when I finally put chicks under her, she is the exception though she brooded 4 batches last year.

 

[schmije]

We actually had a broody hen sitting on two golf balls a couple of months ago.

We were trying to keep her broody for a couple of extra weeks while we waited for day-old chicks to arive. She lost interest in the nest just a few days before the chicks arrived, so they all went in the brooder. Maybe next year...

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

My broody ate most of her eggs and then the ones she didn't eat hatched but she started eating the chicks while they hatched

She was a bad mommy for sure (sexlink). Maybe yours ate the eggs??

 

[hikerchick]

I never thought about her eating them. It just seems so...wrong.