Let's talk broody..Update

[Southern28Chick]

I think I have a broody. All of my chickens go up on the roost at night but tonight I have a Barred Rock sitting on 11 eggs in a nest box. She's not grumpy yet, well she did peck me when I took the eggs to mark them.

Never had a broody before...what do I do?

 

[rooster-red]

See if she stays on the nest tomorrow.

If she is broody she'll sit on those eggs except to eat & poop.

 

[Southern28Chick]

I hope she is broody! I want chickies again!!!

So I marked the eggs she's on. Anything else I need to do if she is broody?

 

[Ericasl]

My broodys poo in there nest and got crazy mean.

.

 

[gumpsgirl]

Since you want more chicks, I'll cross my fingers that she is definitely broody for you!

Good luck!

 

[Southern28Chick]

She has to be broody, what now?

 

[Becaco]

We always put our broodies in a seperate pen. On each end of the chicken coop we added a seperate little house and enclosed top to bottom small yard.

We use these for broodies, hens that need seperating and chicks that bought from the feed store.

 

[Southern28Chick]

She's driving me NUTS! She was in the box all day long. I went out to check on her and I got there just in time to see her pop out an egg. Now there's a leghorn in the box. Oh well...

 

[flinthillbillie]

I had my first broody hen this spring. Every day she let other hens get in with her and add to the clutch. I finally went out one night, candled all the eggs and let her keep 12 that looked to be viable and at about the same stages as each other (at least I felt that was what I did - it was a first for me!),, and marked them as well. Then I barricaded her off from the others for a few days just to stop them from adding more. I couldn't easily keep her barricaded since she was in an upper box and still needed to get out for fresh air, exercise, food and water and once I moved the barricade, the others started adding their eggs again. At least I could then remove the unmarked ones and still get some breakfast! In hindsight, I should have moved her eggs into a nesting area on the floor early on and penned that off instead to where she could get off the nest but still have a safe place once the chicks hatched. As it was, she got 4 beautiful chicklets for all her labors and it was a wonderful experience for me. I hope yours is too!

 

[Southern28Chick]

She has completely snapped out of it. What a rotten trick to play on me.