How many nests for the chickens?

[Eden83_haaretz]

Ok so I'm now wondering if I should keep a nest per chicken. Most of our girls are first timers, turns out that they all have started to go broody one after the other, at the moment we have 5 chickens with chicks, 6 chickens sitting on eggs waiting for them to hatch (one of them decided that today she was going broody and took the nest of one who was already sitting on eggs; we still have about four others that are laying, but I have one "free nest", starting to think I probably have to put 3 more nests the way we're going...
And I'm also worried about our sweet rooster, soon he'll have no chickens to mate with... I also don't want to leave them without nests where they are already laying because they might think it's a good idea to make a nest outside and they're really good at hiding nests and the issue is we have night time predators...

Any suggestions or observations would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Technically yes you can put in a nest for each hen (it'll eat up wall space, that's about it) but do you actually want to hatch all these chicks? I assume you either have space for all of them or plans for them? Nothing says you must let them brood and hatch if you do not want/cannot care for so many chickens.

 

[Aapomp831]

Technically yes you can put in a nest for each hen (it'll eat up wall space, that's about it) but do you actually want to hatch all these chicks? I assume you either have space for all of them or plans for them? Nothing says you must let them brood and hatch if you do not want/cannot care for so many chickens.

X2.... also, you could get more than 50% cockerels.... that always presents an issue.

 

[BDutch]

Technically yes you can put in a nest for each hen (it'll eat up wall space, that's about it) but do you actually want to hatch all these chicks? I assume you either have space for all of them or plans for them? Nothing says you must let them brood and hatch if you do not want/cannot care for so many chickens.

X3
What are you’re plans whit all the chicks?

You have a lot of chicks already, so I would break all this broodiness unless a broody sits on her eggs for > week. Normally you only need one nestbox for 4 hens that lay + a nestbox in a quiet place for every broody and hen with chicks.

 

[DobieLover]

Ok so I'm now wondering if I should keep a nest per chicken. Most of our girls are first timers, turns out that they all have started to go broody one after the other, at the moment we have 5 chickens with chicks, 6 chickens sitting on eggs waiting for them to hatch (one of them decided that today she was going broody and took the nest of one who was already sitting on eggs; we still have about four others that are laying, but I have one "free nest", starting to think I probably have to put 3 more nests the way we're going...
And I'm also worried about our sweet rooster, soon he'll have no chickens to mate with... I also don't want to leave them without nests where they are already laying because they might think it's a good idea to make a nest outside and they're really good at hiding nests and the issue is we have night time predators...

Any suggestions or observations would be greatly appreciated.

My suggestion is that you get a bunch of wire dog crates from garage sales or CL and set up a train of them in your coop and start breaking these girls. I have no idea how you would manage so many chicks and the resultant cockerels unless you plan to raise them all in a grow out pen then butcher them and put them in the freezer.

Broody breaking is part of chicken management. If it was left to the chickens, they would multiply exponentially and without predators to control their numbers you would, within a few months, run out of room to house them and have tremendous flock issues due to the the males fighting and over breeding the females.

 

[Eden83_haaretz]

W

Technically yes you can put in a nest for each hen (it'll eat up wall space, that's about it) but do you actually want to hatch all these chicks? I assume you either have space for all of them or plans for them? Nothing says you must let them brood and hatch if you do not want/cannot care for so many chickens.

Thanks for the advice, at this time we do want more hens and we do have a lot of space, the advantage of the breed is that there is a lot of demand for the Roosters.
The next step would be to free to get cages for all the males so that when they reach sexual maturity we can separate them.
We were impressed on the percentage of males the hens hatch, wow. In 5-7 chicks there'll be about 2 females. I wonder if all breeds have the same issue...

I was also wondering, do the hens get depressed when one locks them up to break their broodiness...? You're supposed to lock them for two-three days I read? We just recently had a couple of chickens that had been sitting on their eggs and they were duds, we felt so horrible for them when we took the eggs and they were so sad, we took eggs from some other chickens and gave it to them.

Also how true is the fact that one should consider a laying hen a "pregnant" lady and when they have chicks it lets their system rest. It seemed logical to me when I was told about it. If a hen is always laying eggs wouldn't her life span shorten? Just wondering...

 

[DobieLover]

W

Thanks for the advice, at this time we do want more hens and we do have a lot of space, the advantage of the breed is that there is a lot of demand for the Roosters.
The next step would be to free to get cages for all the males so that when they reach sexual maturity we can separate them.
We were impressed on the percentage of males the hens hatch, wow. In 5-7 chicks there'll be about 2 females. I wonder if all breeds have the same issue...

I was also wondering, do the hens get depressed when one locks them up to break their broodiness...? You're supposed to lock them for two-three days I read? We just recently had a couple of chickens that had been sitting on their eggs and they were duds, we felt so horrible for them when we took the eggs and they were so sad, we took eggs from some other chickens and gave it to them.

Also how true is the fact that one should consider a laying hen a "pregnant" lady and when they have chicks it lets their system rest. It seemed logical to me when I was told about it. If a hen is always laying eggs wouldn't her life span shorten? Just wondering...

If you plan to keep the cockerels to sell, you need to create housing for them until you get them sold. It would be cruel to stick them in cages. Make a bachelor pad with their own coop and run that is made to the same space and ventilation requirements as the main coop.

Broody hens do not get "depressed" being broken. It just resets them. If anything, it makes them "normal" again. They go back to enjoying time with the flock scratching, preening dust and sun bathing and interacting with flock mates.

No, laying hens are not to be considered "pregnant" ladies. They are chickens and they lay eggs. They take breaks from laying during the winter after their molt.

The life span can certainly be shortened by the breeds egg laying rate. Man has tinkered with chicken genetics to create breeds that crank out tons of eggs with minimal feed with the intent that the bird will not live past it's first adult molt. Avoid those breeds and you will have a chicken that has a much better chance of living a longer, more normal chicken life.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Thanks for the advice, at this time we do want more hens and we do have a lot of space, the advantage of the breed is that there is a lot of demand for the Roosters.
The next step would be to free to get cages for all the males so that when they reach sexual maturity we can separate them.
We were impressed on the percentage of males the hens hatch, wow. In 5-7 chicks there'll be about 2 females. I wonder if all breeds have the same issue...

I was also wondering, do the hens get depressed when one locks them up to break their broodiness...? You're supposed to lock them for two-three days I read?

Also how true is the fact that one should consider a laying hen a "pregnant" lady and when they have chicks it lets their system rest. It seemed logical to me when I was told about it. If a hen is always laying eggs wouldn't her life span shorten? Just wondering...

Ok, glad you have a plan, because sometimes people hatch and THEN think about what to do about all the chicks!

Hens don't get "depressed" from being broken of broodiness, but they will be cranky and show anxious behaviors such as pacing, because their hormones are telling them to go back to the nest.

They're not the same as a pregnant woman (pregnancy is a far bigger health risk than ovulation!) Some breeds are bred to lay eggs prolifically (which does shorten their lifespan) but it doesn't sound like you have birds like that as production birds don't usually go broody.

 

[Eden83_haaretz]

Ok, glad you have a plan, because sometimes people hatch and THEN think about what to do about all the chicks!

Hens don't get "depressed" from being broken of broodiness, but they will be cranky and show anxious behaviors such as pacing, because their hormones are telling them to go back to the nest.

They're not the same as a pregnant woman (pregnancy is a far bigger health risk than ovulation!) Some breeds are bred to lay eggs prolifically (which does shorten their lifespan) but it doesn't sound like you have birds like that as production birds don't usually go broody.

Thanks for the advice, yes we really like and care for them, we give them the best feed we can find and give them fruit and other treats, they roam free and we just lock them up in the coop during the night so they'll be safe from predators.
Truthfully if we had the knowledge and experience we'd look for the humane way to cull them, but right now we don't have the heart to do it, that's why we decided to sell them and get our chicken from a reliable source for now. In the long run that's what we'd like to do.

 

[neo71665]

You have a hen that failed to hatch her nest in the allowed time DO NOT put more eggs under her. Broodies don't eat and take care of them self while sitting and you can easily kill a hen making her hatch 2 times in a row.