How Long Should a hen stay broody?

[atief1253]

Our hen was laying on a couple eggs. Other hens decided to join her, make a mess of the eggs and nestbox. The eggs were not viable. She has been on the box 25 days so far. We threw all the eggs away, candled the four we have and put her in a coop alone with clean eggs and no visitors. Now, the four we have show what looks like a chick - all dark and all dark with a clear area. She does leave the nest to eat, drink and exercise. My question is, how long is it safe to leave a hen on eggs? And will she give up eventually? We don't know how old these eggs are and I don't want to keep letting her sit there forever!

 

[Ridgerunner]

She should be OK, especially if the eggs are looking pretty dark. That means they should be reasonably close to hatching. A hen builds up a lot of fat before she goes broody. She actually does that before she starts to lay eggs, let alone go broody. She lives off of this fat while she is on the nest, only needing to eat and drink a little. She will lose quite a bit of weight while on the nest, but this is practically all fat stored for the purpose. It will depend some on the individual hen and how much she is eating and drinking while off the nest, but she should have enough fat reserves to finish this incubation.

Some hens will sit seemingly forever, but most will stop when that fat runs out. It depends on the hen. Sometimes that can be two or more months after she starts. It’s hard to know exactly what her limits are.

I think you have handled the situation fairly well but obviously you have learned some lessons. I suggest next time you do one of two things. In either case, collect all the eggs you want her to hatch and start them at the same time. If you leave her with the flock, mark the eggs so you know which ones belong and check under her after the others have laid for the day so you can remove any eggs that don’t belong. As long as you remove them daily, you can still use them. Or do as you wound up doing and put her in a locked place so she can’t get out and the other hens can’t get to her nest to lay eggs.

Good luck on getting at least a few eggs to hatch. Since you don’t know exactly when each egg started the hen may abandon her nest when the first one or two hatch. That’s why it’s important to start them all at the same time. I think you will be OK.

 

[atief1253]

Thank you. Your comments were a great help.