I put myself in a pickle and need advice.......

[bloom chicks]

I am all about broody hens......... I love to watch them with there babies......

I started out with 15 chickens at the end of Dec........As of Now I have 49 and some are still hatching as I type....... Well today my BR has been sitting all day and she is in the nest right now.... This will be her 1st time being broody...... Should I give her eggs tomorrow night?........ Do they make good mamas? How many should I give her?....... I don't want to deprive her of being a mama but it is getting a little out of control how quickly they are coming...........She will be my 6th broody this year..........I don't have an incubator....... I also was so excited about my other broodies not thinking I would get more.

If I had known that I would get more then I would have given them less eggs to hatch

.........

Three weeks ago, I made the mistake of giving one of my girls eggs before the 2nd night the next morning she got off the nest...... Anyway I ended up giving them to another broody that was sitting on her own hatch.......so she was sitting on a staggered hatch..........my prayers were answered with mama, she went broody again right before lockdown on the 1st hatch (they hatched last week) and mama's are hatching right now she has only been sitting for a week and 3 days....... I don't want to make the same mistake again......

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated...........


BTW: my girls have been hatching mostly girls out of the 49 chickens 10 are boys.......

 

[bobbi-j]

You're the only one who can answer your question, and I think you already did: "I don't want to deprive her of being a mama but it is getting a little out of control how quickly they are coming..." Do you have adequate housing for all your chickens? Do you have space for them all to free range? Can you afford to feed them all? What do you plan on doing with all the eggs you'll be getting? Are you prepared to remove extras from the flock by processing, selling, giving away, or some other means? If it were me, I wouldn't give them to her, but that's because I have set boundaries for myself. I can only afford to feed and house a certain amount of chickens, so I try to stay at that number or less.

 

[FLITZ]

I was going to only have one rooster and a few hens. maybe 4-5 ....
Right now i'm sitting on 55+ What am I thinking....and thats after selling 25

As soon as i figure out the ones I want to keep...I'm getting rid of a bunch of them!!
My oldest are 6 weekish...then some two week olds and one week olds.

Only problem is ..after six weeks I could only choose 25 to get rid of

This has gotten way out of hand. We don't even eat many eggs!!

 

[bloom chicks]

Right now I have only 10 laying hens. We do eat lots of eggs. My neighbors eat them as well and I have had many people ask me if I am going to sell the eggs.... I do have a neigbor that will process (only boys) for me. My other girls haven't started laying yet so I don't know how they lay yet. I do have the room and can afford them....

Has anyone had experience with Barred Rock broodies?