How many eggs can a broody hatch?

[Iceblink]

I'm sorry if this is in the wrong area, I wan't sure if it should be in Brooding and incubating, but the posts there seem to all be about brooding with incubators.

Anyway, my question is, how many eggs can a standard size hen handle? Is a dozen too many? What about bantam or heavy breeds?

If I let her hatch them, then I take some or all of them away to hand raise, will she be depressed?

 

[KingsCalls]

If she can cover 15 without any being uncovered then she can brood 15. It all depends on her size and if she can keep them all covered! If any are not covered, when she moves the eggs around she will move another to where it is not covered and over and over. Then what winds up happening is you have 15 eggs and 2 or 3 hatch because some were rotated out to where she could not cover them and the embryo dies. If whatever # she is sitting on looks close to the max, remove a couple to be safe!