Inducing broodiness

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Hi All, we’ve had multiple super broody hens, BCM, silkie, Barnyard mix. All three of these seemed to be constantly broody last year, we put in a broody breaker cage and had it constantly filled, it seemed. We also have 10 mo old pullets that have been broody over the winter. We want them to hatch chicks, because they are so much easier to integrate into our mean flock that way. We are in Oklahoma and it’s been spring for more than a month, all hens resumed laying about two months ago, except the silkie. We recently (1 mo) added a BCM roo to the flock, and he seems to be doing well with the 14 ladies, who can get away from him if they want.

So, we decided to collect fertilized eggs and start incubating, with the thought that some hen would go broody and take the eggs for their last 1-2 weeks of incubation. Eggs have incubated for four days, and I’ve had 11 ceramic eggs in a nest box for about five days. No signs of broodiness, and now I’m getting nervous and having second thoughts... Any other thoughts about inducing broodiness? Anyone have luck introducing a non-broody silkie to the chicks of need be? I wouldn’t try it with any other chicken, but our silkie babysat younger chicks when she was a pullet, readily took chicks last year when her hatch failed, and is not very aggressive. Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Matzwd]

If you were a Missouri neighbor, I'd let you borrow a broody. It's spreading here at a faster rate than coronavirus.

 

[sdm111]

No

 

[aart]

Eggs have incubated for four days, and I’ve had 11 ceramic eggs in a nest box for about five days. No signs of broodiness, and now I’m getting nervous and having second thoughts... Any other thoughts about inducing broodiness?

We Plan, the Chicken Gods Laugh!

The pile of fake eggs is the only thing I've heard of that might work.
Might better start planning on how to brood those chicks.
This might give you a few ideas:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/integrating-new-birds-at-4-weeks-old.72603/

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

We Plan, the Chicken Gods Laugh!

The pile of fake eggs is the only thing I've heard of that might work.
Might better start planning on how to brood those chicks.
This might give you a few ideas:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/integrating-new-birds-at-4-weeks-old.72603/

Thanks aart. Looks like our silkie is ill so that’s one reason we don’t have any broody hens. Our other two experiences, major broodies have been laying for months and seem healthy but still no broodiness since late fall/winter. We still have the ceramic eggs, plus we stopped collecting eggs from the upper nest boxes (ducks share the lower boxes and we don’t really need a broody duck!). We are in day 6 of incubation - fingers crossed because integrating birds into this flock is so challenging! I suggested to DD that we make these all the “meat birds” that she wanted to try so we don’t need to integrate them, but she really wanted to keep the pullets from this hatch....