We take the eggs from the broody hens. They still try as soon as they lay again or another hen lays. But they go get food and water, once done being mad at us.
I attempted introduction of chicks to broody hens. Honestly both seemed okay as far as not being aggressive but neither showed interest in the chicks, unlike our old RIR who would mother anything remotely chick like… she would see a baby bird and that was her chick from that point on… these two would require sneaking out to the coop and swapping eggs out and sticking babies under them in the middle of the night sort of stealth operation. I am uncomfortable with the weather outside to do that. (I brought the hens inside to the brooder to observe them with the chicks).
We lost two chicks yesterday we don’t know why, this is the earliest live order we have done (one lost in shipping) and usually we have no losses from this hatchery. So I cut the test run short in case something is happening like some chicks afraid of hen (not that I saw her interfering with the chicks), and so not coming out from under warmer. No evidence of violence to the chicks… they were the two I was worried about from beginning, not as active as other chicks.
Anyway back to normal procedure here. It was interesting to observe the two different hens reactions, very different than our old red hen.