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Anny, thank you for the link!
I've had lots of broodies over many years, and right now I have 4 hens raising babies, and 6 more brooding. I read the guide on the link, and mostly, I agree. It's pretty good, until you get to the 3rd part, (Hen and chicks) through #9. From #10 on, I disagree with parts of it. Mostly just way too cautious about letting mom and babies back with the flock, or outside..
First, let me explain a few things. I do not have room to isolate every one of these broodies, or any way to keep anywhere from 3 to 10 clutches of chicks separated from the rest of the flock, each clutch in their own space with mom. If you do have such facilities, more power to you, but most people can't quite manage to separate more than 2 or 3.
Sometimes conditions will be less than perfect, but you do what you can, with what you have.
Here's what I do: I do have space to separate a few broodies. I isolate the ones that I know are good moms, but may not be good at keeping other hens out of the nest, and give them most of the eggs I have available. When one of them hatches her eggs, I let her stay with them in the private room for about 3 days. Then I let them out with the rest of the flock, and move another hen in to the private maternity ward.
The others only get a few eggs each, and many of those get broken, some by the broodies, stealing each others eggs, some by other hens stepping on them while climbing in to add their own eggs. Some get knocked out of the nest and broken. So these girls don't get the choicest eggs. I don't expect much out of them, there's just too much traffic in the nests!
When they do hatch some chicks, they are right there with the rest of the flock, and as soon as they want to, they take the chicks outside. I don't think I've ever had chicks with a hen, that had to wait a whole month before going outside. Even incubator chicks, if I have a new mom at the right time, I'll stick those chicks under her at night, and it usually works fine. Some of my hens are so maternal, I can just hand them a chick anywhere near the other chicks ages, and they'll take them. Some don't even care about that, they'll adopt anything. I realize this is not true of a lot of hens.
I do not wait until chicks are nearly full grown to add them to the flock. I do not keep mom and chicks away from the flock for more than a few days, unless there's something odd going on that makes it necessary. i.e., a dark Cornish hatched out some keets for me, and a guinea kept attacking her and trying to take them. I tried to let the guinea raise a couple, but she nearly got them killed, because the whole group wasn't in on it. (Guineas don't parent as individuals like chickens do. The keets were wet, cold, could barely move they were so hypothermic. I warmed them indoors in a brooder, then gave them to the Cornish.) So she got a private pen with the keets until the guineas lost interest, about 3 weeks.
But it is a very good general guide. You won't harm anything by using this guide, even if some of it really puts you through more trouble than you really need.
For your situation, you might isolate who you can, and let them have the majority of the eggs. You can candle them and try to set the ones that look at about the same stage of development, together. If you want to incubate the rest, just try to group them by development, guess by candling.
You can stick the other hens in wire bottom cages with food and water, but off the ground with no nesting materials, to break the brooding cycle. It takes just a few days, then they can go back to the rest of the flock.
I have a couple of hens that seem to be good at setting, but have no idea what to do when an egg starts to hatch. They're getting special leg bands, so I can tell who they are, and they will not get eggs anymore. They will get the "breaking the broody cycle" treatment, instead. They just take up nest space, peck the heck out of me, steal eggs, and then let the chicks die when they hatch. And keep brooding. Off to the wire pen with them!
Oh, and I always, always, always, mark my eggs and date them. Even if I don't expect to have other eggs with other dates, because unexpected stuff happens. That way I always know when eggs are due to hatch. If there's a broody in a good place to take eggs at day 18, so that you don't have to change humidity in the 'bator, that's a big help. You can rotate out eggs to broodies, as they come due to hatch. That way if you can rig up even one isolated area for one hen at a time, you can let her hatch and raise chicks. Just put her in the isolation space with some fake eggs or other substitute to see if she set in the new space, before you give her the 'bator eggs. So you have to move her a few days early. If more chicks hatch in the bator while she's still in the pen, you may be able to slp them under her at night.
Good luck. I hope you can resolve your broody problems. Try not to let them make you crazy, they're good at that, I know!
