Let her hatch or try to stop her?!

[kuchchicks]

So I have a 1 year old Black Maran hen. About a week ago she started hoarding eggs and generally acting broody. Despite having 6 nesting boxes all of my hens try to lay in only 3 of them. Up to this point I am collecting eggs 2x a day because I wanted to incubate them. I felt bad every time I took the eggs from her because she always had 3-4 under her (hers and from a couple other hens) and was very upset and VOCAL when I took them, she always pecks me which is quite unusual for her.

I have room for 4 more eggs in my bator and by tomorrow I will have enough. After that I had planned on returning to collecting the eggs for eating. But I was wondering if I should let her brood? I have only ever had 1 other hen go broody on me. I had no idea what I was doing and let it go too long. She sat on the eggs for about a month and none of them hatched. I tried opening one and it was so rotten that it exploded as soon as I tried to crack it.... the smell was awful!!! So that kind of turned me off from letting my hens hatch their own eggs. But she seems really determined.

I am just wondering if Marans make good moms? I don't know if she is a pure Maran or mixed as she was given to me about 2 months ago. Should I let her go and sit on these or is it going to be a waste of eggs? And if I do let her go, how do I stop additional eggs from being laid in the nesting box constantly? If other eggs do get laid in there and I remove the new ones will it cause her to stop laying on the original eggs? I do have another coop under construction and hope it will be done by the end of next week that was going to house my silkies but it is not ready yet. I could move her there at that point since silkies are so docile....

Just not sure what to do at this point.

 

[Saris]

I haven't had a broody hen yet, mine only just started laying. So this is just what I would do in your situation is either put her in a broody box and break her, or if you'd want more chick than what could hatch let her try and hatch some. I would sneak in with a marker and mark the eggs that you want to let her hatch so you can remove any eggs that get laid after the fact. and you can candle them just like you would the eggs in your incubator I believe to see if they're developing so they don't go rotten again.

 

[Saris]

I love babies so I would probably try and let her hatch some.