How does a chicken start her nest?

[Shadrach]

Maybe....I don't know really, because the idea of leaving eggs laying around while waiting for a hen to go broody seems wasteful to me.

@Shadrach did those hen lay clutches in your 'house' nests, then decide to set?

They did and still do.
I've never been able to make up my mind if the hens lay eggs in a particular place with the intention of sitting once they laid a certain amount of eggs, or they just go broody and sit on what's there.
With some hens here it is reasonably apparent that they don't intend to sit because they lay eggs in a number of locations, usually where other hens have laid. It could be a spread the risk strategy I suppose but I'm inclined to believe if anything they hope another hen that lays in the same place will sit and hatch.
Very few of the hens here pick dark secluded places to sit on a clutch.
Each group has it's favorite spots which are relatively open and close to food sources and water.
Most of the men here I speak to who free range their chickens report much the same. They've provided nest boxes in the coops but then hens don't use them much.
The guy a couple of farms down ended up making portable mesh crates which he drops over his hens nest sites and secures to the ground with stakes. The hens can come and go during the day and he can shut the crates at night.
I'm thinking of trying the same.

 

[father0fnine]

Hi Ridgerunner. Very interesting post. Some of it I knew from my Muscovys, like the countdown for eggs starting when the hen starts to incubate, not when the egg is layed. I've watched several Muscovy nests being build up, an egg a day, for several weeks before mom dedicates herself to sitting on them. I also know that if a couple of days pass and no new eggs appear and mom isn't sitting on the nest, the nest was likely abandoned and it's time to dispose of eggs. That happened just last week when we had a massive rain storm that soaked the nest. Mom left the nest during the storm and never went back.

I'm not sure what your goals are, why do you have the chickens? Do you use the eggs? Why do you want more chickens? Your management techniques should be based on your goals.

I have chickens to eat eggs. I have several good egg layers. I feed, they lay, I get the eggs, and we're all happy. The ducks I have for critter control. They wander around and do duck things. When they go to nest, I keep an eye on things but I let them do their on thing. For the duck eggs, I'll usually collect one every other day until mom starts to incubate. A few of the clutch are destined for my table and the rest are sold.

In the last batch of "pullets" I ended up with a couple of roosters. Since they were from "dual purpose" birds (Wyandotte and Orpington), I thought I'd keep them with a couple of ladies and let them produce chicks. Ideally, I would manage them more or less the same. Section them off from the rest so that the breeds don't crossbreed and let them lay and hatch the chicks. After a few months, some can go to table and the rest can be sold.

I do not have an incubator and I'm afraid I won't have one this year or maybe not the next. My biggest concern is having a bunch of eggs laying around and not knowing if I should be cleaning them out or if I do start cleaning them out, if I just tore apart the nest that would have been something. I learned early on that with my Muscovys, if I empty the nest of eggs, the duck stops laying.

D

 

[Ridgerunner]

My biggest concern is having a bunch of eggs laying around and not knowing if I should be cleaning them out or if I do start cleaning them out, if I just tore apart the nest that would have been something. I learned early on that with my Muscovys, if I empty the nest of eggs, the duck stops laying.

D

I've never noticed a hen just stop laying because I remove the eggs, but then I leave a golf ball as a fake egg in each nest. I've had hens go broody when all they have is the fake egg. Sort of as Shadrack mentioned, some hens might lay in different nests on different days but some always lay in the same nest every day. The only thing consistent abut chickens is that they are inconsistent. Just because one acts a certain way doe not mean they all do.

A hen will hatch any hen's eggs, not just her own. A chicken will even hatch and raise ducks, turkeys, or peahens. Your duck would hatch chicken eggs but not sure how she'd manage the swimming part after they hatched. Might be an interesting experiment.

 

[aart]

Methinks chickens and waterfowl are very different....
....as are all of our goals and management techniques.

 

[centrarchid]

My hens go through a fairly consistent sequence when it comes to nesting. First they put on weight storing up resources needed to lay eggs. Resources include fats, protein, vitamins (those related to vitamin A you can see in some tissues, and minerals (calcium and phosphate especially in medullary bone). Generally at onset of lay the hen is at her peak weight. This all gets her hormones rolling to produce a clutch of eggs. Hens that are ready tend to get more aggressive (you have to watch closely to see) and will look a rooster up if they are not already associated with one. The hold their tail pinched and at a 45 degree angle above the horizontal. The body feathers are contoured to make the hen look almost like a brick. The hen also gives a sound I only recently recorded that stimulates roosters to want to point out a nest location. If a rooster is involved then the rooster occupies the future nest site and the hen looks carefully at him as he does his little display hunkered down on the nest. Then both parties leave. Over the next 24 to 72 hours the hen comes back the nest site, usually alone where she begins scrapping out a nest bowl with her feet before hunkering down and moving materials around with her beak. She may lay an egg the first visit or go as long as 48 hours with visits roughly every 24 hours. After the first interaction with the rooster, he no longer does his “here is the nest site” display nor will other roosters for that hen. Egg deposition is then repeated at roughly 24 hour intervals until the clutch is complete. My hen’s loose condition as clutch increases in size, but she is still heavy at onset of broodiness. Normally weight loss considerable through hatching and decreases further for a week or so after brood comes of nest. By two weeks post-hatch the hen's weight is on the way back up, but does not really bounce back until chicks are weaned.

 

[Shadrach]

My hens go through a fairly consistent sequence when it comes to nesting. First they put on weight storing up resources needed to lay eggs. Resources include fats, protein, vitamins (those related to vitamin A you can see in some tissues, and minerals (calcium and phosphate especially in medullary bone). Generally at onset of lay the hen is at her peak weight. This all gets her hormones rolling to produce a clutch of eggs. Hens that are ready tend to get more aggressive (you have to watch closely to see) and will look a rooster up if they are not already associated with one. The hold their tail pinched and at a 45 degree angle above the horizontal. The body feathers are contoured to make the hen look almost like a brick. The hen also gives a sound I only recently recorded that stimulates roosters to want to point out a nest location. If a rooster is involved then the rooster occupies the future nest site and the hen looks carefully at him as he does his little display hunkered down on the nest. Then both parties leave. Over the next 24 to 72 hours the hen comes back the nest site, usually alone where she begins scrapping out a nest bowl with her feet before hunkering down and moving materials around with her beak. She may lay an egg the first visit or go as long as 48 hours with visits roughly every 24 hours. After the first interaction with the rooster, he no longer does his “here is the nest site” display nor will other roosters for that hen. Egg deposition is then repeated at roughly 24 hour intervals until the clutch is complete. My hen’s loose condition as clutch increases in size, but she is still heavy at onset of broodiness. Normally weight loss considerable through hatching and decreases further for a week or so after brood comes of nest. By two weeks post-hatch the hen's weight is on the way back up, but does not really bounce back until chicks are weaned.

The hens here tend to still put on weight while they are sitting. I do make sure they have access to plenty of food though. I would have thought that eating as much as they can prior to the clutch hatching would be in their interests because once the chicks arrive the hen tend to feed what she finds to the chicks and this may go on for 3 or 4 weeks.
I've only weighed 3 throughout a sit and none lost weight.

 

[Shadrach]

I think it works something like this.
The hen maintains her stable weight throughout her egg laying cycle given sufficient nutrition. Very roughly one third by weight of what she consumes goes into the egg by weight. She also expends energy during the day foraging.
So until the clutch is laid she maintains average weight until two or three days before she intends to sit. I haven't been able to measure how much more a hen intending to sit eats for these three or so days but from observation it's a considerable amount.
Some hens here have not left the nest for the first two days of sitting so the extra consumed prior to sitting may be for this purpose. The first three days of sitting and getting the eggs correctly positioned have an influence on the hatch success apparently.
Usually when the hen sits on the clutch she stops laying any more eggs. she may still lay eggs for a couple of days after sitting.
Once the egg production drive switches off she is able to store that third of nutrition which before went into the egg.
A sitting hen goes into a type of trance and her metabolism slows down thus burning less calories.
Assuming the hen can leave the nest and find sufficient food she roughly need only consume a bit less than two thirds of what she would when laying eggs. It could be considerably less given the slow down in her metabolic rate when sitting.
Judging by the quantity of poop a sitting hen produces I would guess (it would be interesting to weight how much a sitting hen excretes compared to a laying hen) the hens here consume during the time they are off the next something very close to two thirds of what they would normally.
The lack of activity, the slower metabolic rate and not diverting nutrition into making an egg would it seems be what has allowed a sitting hen to increase her bodyweight.
I have broody feeding bowls here which when filled approximately level with their normal feed weighs approximately100 grams depending on composition. A broody hen has no problem eating this during her period off the eggs. The heavier hens will eat more.

 

[centrarchid]

I am being hard to get on with. LOL

 

[aart]

I am being hard to get on with. LOL

Stop the presses!!! Save this admission as it's rare

 

[centrarchid]

Stop the presses!!! Save this admission as it's rare

It was sarcasm, not an admission. Call me affable.