Well you know me, I'd bring her inside. It's a neat eperience for your family too, you get to see a lot more of the chicks and they get more acclimated to people when they are inside. Also for the birds welfare, I suggest bringing her in, because with this cold weather, she wont get up and eat or tidbit like she normally would because they air is too cold for the chicks to run around much. She may get sick or sore from sitting too much. Just my 2 cents. I just you a good size rubbermaid container with wood chips and put the food and water on an upturned cake pan so it keeps the shavings out. All of my broodies were brought inside this winter since it has been so awful.This is Maggie, one of my australorps.
Two weeks ago today, on Valentine's Day, I realized she was spending an awful lot of time sitting in this rabbit nest box up in the barn loft. So, thinking perhaps she was going broody, I carried her in her box downstairs and put her in one of our growout pens. I put 9 eggs under her to see what would happen. Sure enough, she has been sitting on them the entire time. She'll come out to grab a bite to eat & drink & then snuggle back in. Now I'm wondering with the temperatures so cold yet, should I let her stay in the barn to hatch out the chicks, or bring her inside a few days before? Or bring her and the chicks in after they hatch? Or will she be able to keep them warm enough? We do have a brooder light for the pen that we could use if necessary... If we do get chicks, they'll be an interesting crossbreed mix as I just used the cleanest eggs I had collected. There's at least 1 EE in there, maybe a 2nd, although I'm still not sure what color my other girl lays -- too similar to the rest of the eggs. I think maybe there was 1 or 2 ISA or cinnamon queen eggs, and the rest were either gold/silver laced wyandotte, buff/lemon orpington, barred rock, australorp or an orpington/speckled sussex mix. My 2 roos are a lavender orpington and a lemon/lavender orpington mix. Who knows what these birds will look like! This is my first broody hatch so I'm hoping all goes well -- one more week!!
