Is this what "broody" looks like?

[Feathyr]

That's your decision. If you have a rooster and are interested in hatching chicks, I would stick an egg beneath her. If you want to break her of it, just lock her in a cage with food, water, and no nesting boxes for a couple of days. It can take anywhere from a day to a week to break a broody, depending on how determined she is.

That is correct - they typically will leave the nest for a few minutes to care for themselves, and will do so more frequently during incubation. The only problem I've had with broodies is that they sometimes contract mites, which will transfer to the chicks once hatched. Hitting them with Sevin dust before the egg has reached 12 days of incubation is the recommended treatment.

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

What to do depends on what you want - do you want/can you afford (space, etc) to add to your flock at this time? Do you have fertile eggs? If you want chicks, give her some eggs - if you do not, I would suggest reading up on how to "break a broody" because whether she has eggs or not she will stay there attempting to hatch them and the process of brooding is taxing on a hen (due to the fact that they stay on the nest and reduce the eating, drinking, etc) -plus, if production of eggs is important to you, snapping her out of an unnecessary brush with broodiness sooner rather than later is to your benefit as it will mean she will return to laying sooner rather than later.

X2

 

[krista74]

She looks like a broody hen - just like my dear BO who is due to hatch tomorrow - although I suspect we will have a chick or two by the time the day is out.

I am reasonably new to chicken owning, but I'm on my third broody already! The absolute best advice I have been given is not to touch anything once she is settled in a nice protected spot. Don't touch her, don't touch her eggs, don't touch her nest. Don't lift her to see what's going on underneath either, lol. The less you interfere the better your hatch will be. The only exceptions I make to this rule is to (1) Move her if she is in an unsafe spot, or (2) Candle the eggs, which I do around the 9 day mark, and remove any undeveloped/quitter eggs.

I learned the hard way - I was very 'hands on' with my first broody, and she only hatched one egg. My second broody I never went near, and she hatched 6 out of 7. You must leave her alone once she has eggs and trust that she knows what she's doing - we do not know better! She will eat/drink and poop when she needs to, and whilst it might not be as often as you would like, she is probably doing it while you are not there. They are sneaky that way! I NEVER ONCE saw my first broody off her nest, but her food bowl was always messed up each morning by the time I got there. She also didn't poop for 5 (yes, FIVE!) days, but when she did.......

As to whether or not to give her any eggs, it depends - do you want chicks, and do you have any fertile eggs to give her? No-one can predict how many will be male and how many female. I know it averages out to 50/50 but I just hatched 5 and I'm pretty sure there is only 1 pullet in the batch. It happens. As @joannefiddler said above, if you place the eggs in front of her she will most likely squirrel them away and underneath her. It is so darn cute to watch them do it, too.

Good luck! If you decide to proceed you are in for a very exciting time!

Krista

 

[Just sayin]

She's only been doing this since last night. It was just such a rapid change for her.

It just seems like a bad time of year, the weather just turned nasty and they'd be hatching in the coldest part of winter! Should I still let her try? Or will I end up with this chicken, and her babies, in my house, in December? ;-) Or should I wait and see if she gets over this and offers to do this again closer to spring?

I have actually thought it would be fun to try... someday. The father is an Americauna...


I would be curious which of the crosses would probably make for the best babies. We have six hens: This Buff, a BR, a RIR, an Australorpe, a GLWyandotte, and a Leghorn. I can tell whose eggs are whose, usually, so I could control this if some of the crosses would make prettier chickens, or prettier eggs, than others.

 

[krista74]

My girl hatched her chicks in the last week of Winter. There was still frost on the ground, but she kept her chicks warm. As long as she is in a nice fluffy nest, out of the wind, she will be fine!

Give her only as many eggs as she can comfortably cover. M BO started out with 10 eggs but I felt like she was struggling. Once I cleared out 3 undeveloped eggs she settled on 7 nicely. Each bird is different of course, but for a first timer I would start her out on maybe 6 or 7 eggs and go from there.

Krista

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Your cockerel is an Easter Egger - the eggs that would be laid by any resulting chicks would depend on whether he carries the "blue egg gene" or not (not all EE do, due to being mixed breed birds). IF he does then resulting female chicks *could* lay some shade of blue/green (from your various brown laying breeds) or blue (from your leghorn) - they can also just as easily lay cream, brown, etc. Because you will be hatching mixed breed chicks, the prediction of what they will look like is pretty much a wild card due to the unknown breeds used to create the rooster.

 

[Just sayin]

Well... It's a mystery business, playing God, I guess... on which eggs I give her, if any Might just create the world's ugliest chickens, but they'll be ours, so we'll love them, right? I'll think about it and see what she does today. If she keeps it up, I'll give her some eggs and see.

We don't mind the loss of production really, we're getting plenty, and this is just a hobby. Just want to do what's good for her at this particular time. Not real wild about getting more roosters, but we'll cross that bridge when we need to.

Should I give her fresh just laid ones? Or I read up there... I can use eggs that have already been in the fridge?

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

First off give her a couple more days without eggs. She may decide that the broody thing is not for her yet!

Then if you give her eggs, the freshest is the best. Personally I would start gathering eggs now (or eggs gathered a couple of days ago at most) and give them to her in two days if she is still broody. I've never tried refriderated eggs (I keep mine out for the most part), but tons of people have good luck with them!

It will be up to you to decide if she needs extra help keeping them warm when they hatch. It all depends on what kind of mother she is. A good broody will have no trouble keeping chicks toasty in low temps.

 

[Just sayin]

OK - that seems like a reasonable approach! Thanks everyone for your help! Lots of great helpful replies here!

 

[ShockValue]

I was looking forward to having a broody, but it happened sooner than we had anticipated and didn't have eggs/money/time to deal with the situation just then. So instead of letting her sit there for a month trying to hatch golf-balls, we decided to build a "breaker box". A few scrap 2x2s and some left-over hardware cloth, and voilla! 2 days in broody-jail and she was back to her old self (if a bit grumpy about the experience.)