I want to raise more chickens but none of my hens have ever gone broody. Can I choose one of mine to make it go broody?

[trufadog]

I want to raise more chicks. I have never had a hen go broody in the four yrs that I have been raising chickens. I read that you can make one of your chickens go broody. Which one of my chickens would be a better mom: Americauna, Black sex link, Brown Leg horn, Dominique. Thank you!

 

[Percheron chick]

You can't "make a hen go broody". None of breeds you have are predisposed to broodiness either. Your best bet is to invest in a good incubator

 

[Sussex19]

None of your breeds are really broody breeds.
I believe one can encourage a hen to go broody (by leaving eggs in the nest, and making sure that it is comfortable), if she is already thinking about it.
If she is not thinking about it e.g. doesn't have the right hormones, then no amount of encouraging will make her brood.
Sadly, with those breeds you listed, most likely none will ever get those hormones.
So the best way to go would be to get an incubator and brooder for when they hatch.
Alternatively, you could look at getting some hens of a breed like a silky, which are well known for brooding; but even then there is no guaranteed that that hen will go broody.

 

[neo71665]

Going broody is hormonal and can't be turned on like a light switch.

 

[Party_Chicken]

I had a white leghorn mixed with some kind of bantam and she was always broody unfortunately a fox took her but we are her hatching eggs. You can’t make a chicken go broody but be sure to leave a nest of eggs for them!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have never had a hen go broody in the four yrs that I have been raising chickens.

Then it is unlikely any of yours ever will. Many hens have had the broodiness bred out of them. While it is possible you can get a hen of any breed to go broody, some are extremely unlikely. You have some of those breeds. If any one of your hens did go broody I'd give her eggs to hatch, the odds are fairly good any of them would be a good mother. But the odds of any of them going broody after four years are very unlikely.

You have some options for more chicks:

Buy some and raise them yourself. One advantage to this is that you can often choose the sex of the chicks. If you hatch you will almost certainly get some boys. You need a plan to deal with boys.

Get an incubator so you can hatch your own eggs if you already have a rooster or get some fertile eggs to hatch. This way you can control when you hatch.

You can get more hens of breeds that often go broody. You would have to get a few because not all hens of these breeds go broody and you can't control when they go broody. To me this is by far the least efficient way to go about it.

Another option is to buy Point of Lay pullets. By this age you know they are girls and they have their laying life ahead of them.

 

[FC16]

It’s definitely possible to encourage broodiness but you can’t ‘make’ them go broody. Things like leaving fake eggs in the nest and having curtains to make it more private can increase your chances, but with the breeds listed I’m not sure doing this would help as their not prone to broodiness. A good incubator can be over 100 pounds/dollars (depending where you’re from), I’d recommend you get some some more hens if you have the space, look into some silkies or orpingtons perhaps if you’d like a broody, even just getting 2 would be probably cheaper than a good incubator.

 

[Mrs. K]

I tried hard last year, with a known broody hen. I wanted her to go broody on my terms because I had chicks coming... No it didn't work.

4 weeks later - she went broody.

Mrs K

 

[FC16]

I tried hard last year, with a known broody hen. I wanted her to go broody on my terms because I had chicks coming... No it didn't work.

4 weeks later - she went broody.

Mrs K

, I did the same had a Silkie who I tried to encourage in March last year to go broody by leaving some fake eggs out, she didn’t go broody, she then proceeded to go broody 4 times that year in April, May, July and then September!

 

[Mrs. K]

I had read that if you lock them in a nest on a pile of eggs and keep it dark, in two days they will be broody. Nope, nada, nothing.