Leghorn cross going broody?

[cwrite]

Snowy is a leghorn cross called a Long Lay & I believe they are not supposed to go broody. However, she has taken to sitting on all the eggs all morning. I have five hens & they usually lay an egg each day in the morning. I'm not sure if Snowy waits for the others to lay their egg (they only use one nest box) or if they have to share with her & she collects the egg before booting the other hen out the nest box.
Her broodiness only goes so far though. After midday she leaves the nest all afternoon & roosts with the others at night. Then the next day she is back to hogging the next box the whole morning. She also hasn't removed any feathers from her breast. If I try to collect the eggs while she is sitting she makes a clicking noise & rattles her tail feathers at me.
Is this the start of a hen going broody or is she just being a bit weird?

 

[sourland]

It sounds as if she is indeed going broody. Although broodiness has been pretty much selected out of the Leghorn DNA, an occasional hen will still set and raise chicks.

 

[cwrite]

I'd love to have a hen go broody, but I'm still a bit sceptical about whether she would be able to do the whole job. I think I'll wait & see if she takes this any further. It would be very exciting if she did.

 

[cwrite]

I guess the next question is at what point do most folks feel confident that their hen is ready to be a first time mum? I don't have an incubator so although there are never any guarantees, I'd need to be pretty sure of her before I bought her fertiliszd eggs to sit on.

 

[cwrite]

Snowy started sitting day & night after we spent a day out & left the days eggs in the nest overnight. We bought her fertile aracauna eggs on Saturday, swopped them for the 12 eggs she had collected late that afternoon & she's been a fantastic mum-to-be ever since.
In fact, I've seen her off the nest only once & it doesn't look like she ate the food I put out for her yesterday. She's in a fenced off section of the run in a dog box so no one else has access to the food & water. How long can she go without eating or how long should I wait before becoming concerned about her?

Here is a pic of her new eggs.