Letting chickens do the hatching...

[Jambruins]

I am planning on gettting chickens next year and have a few questions about letting a chicken do the hatching for me.

I need to have a broody correct? How do I know when I have a broody?

Should I collect all the eggs from all the chickens and put them under the broody? Some will be fertile and others won't right?

How many eggs should I put under the broody?

Should I put the broody in a separate area so she is by herself with the eggs?

Thanks.

 

[kandryve]

Ok, to start off, we hatched 2 babies almost 3 weeks ago for the first time and we did use a broody hen.

You shouldn't have a problem noticing a broody hen! She'll sit on the nest for hours at a time, appear to be in some sort of a trance, and when she does get off the nest, she'll walk around clucking to herself and puff up.

Depending on the size of the hen, you can put different numbers of eggs under her. We only put 5 under ours, and she is a big hen, but that's all that was available to us since we don't have a rooster. Apparently you can put as many as 12 under larger hens. Again, it depends on the size.

We didn't put ours in a separate area by herself, but it did cause some problems. I would suggest separating her.

I hope this helps!

 

[SilkieTime]

What kind of problems? more eggs ( but my other hens are to young yet for eggs 3mo.)

 

[kandryve]

Well one problem we encountered was that another hen decided to go broody as well... little did we think she would settle herself into the same nesting box!

Then once the chicks hatched the two hens started fighting over who should keep them, but we settled it by choosing the original hen, aka the hen that had actually incubated the eggs for the entire duration.

And now the two hens still fight when they see each other. We put them together this afternoon to see if all was forgiven... Not quite!

 

[Judy]

Here's a good overview article on broodies:

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Broody-Hens-1.html

Many breeds will rarely if ever go broody. You might select at least one that will, which this article lists. Other breeds will have some members go broody; these are noted on Henderson's breed chart:

http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html

There's also a sticky at the top of the incubating forum that has great pics of fertile eggs. You have to crack them to find out, though unless you incubate several days and candle.

I separate my broody so she won't be bothered by the others, but I let her out every morning for her daily eat, poop, drink round. And I removed the cage and put her and the chicks with the flock when they hatched. Worked for me. Some people separate til the chicks are old enough to integrate (adult size.) Some don't even separate for the setting, but usually others will add to the egg pile, or the broody will steal some eggs, so if you don't, you should mark the eggs you are choosing to be set and remove others.

Lots of info on BYC about experience with broodies.

 

[Fuzzypea]

She'll sit on the nest for hours at a time, appear to be in some sort of a trance, and when she does get off the nest, she'll walk around clucking to herself and puff up.

I know that silkies and cochin bantams get broody often, (from experience)
but I'm not sure about other breeds of chickens...

Maybe you could ask somebody else about that.

Anyway, I think it DOES depend on the size of the hen, but I wouldn't "overstuff" her with eggs. I hope this helped. Good luck!

 

[Chicky Tocks]

Orpingtons go broody almost as a rule!

Other signs that your hen is broody:

She'll pluck the feathers from her chest making it bald.
When you get to close to her, she'll growl at you and maybe even peck.
She won't get off the nest. She'll even sit on top of another laying chicken waiting for the egg.

I've hatched eggs with both a broody hen and an incubator. Although I dearly love the one on one with the babies coming from an incubator. The experience of watching a hen sit and hatch then raise her own babies is priceless.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Others have been doing a good job but I'll chime in also.

Should I collect all the eggs from all the chickens and put them under the broody? Some will be fertile and others won't right?

If you have a rooster for every 10 to 12 hens, all the eggs should be fertile.

How many eggs should I put under the broody?

As mentioned, it depends on the breed and size of the broody. Some bantams can only handle 3. Some full sized hens can easily handle a dozen. She needs to be able to cover them all to keep them warm. For your first time, I'd go with a few less than the maximum.

Should I put the broody in a separate area so she is by herself with the eggs?

I'll copy something I recently wrote in another post that expresses the options as I see them.

I don't know your goals for chickens or your set-up. I'll try to give you some basic information so you can decide what to do that is best for you. What you do might be totally different than what I or someone else would do.

I see two options for you, either move her to an isolated pen where the other hens cannot get to her nest to lay or leave her where she is.

If you leave her where she is, you need to decide what eggs you want her to hatch and mark them clearly. A black magic marker works great. After you have collected and marked all the eggs you want her to hatch, you put them under her at the same time and remove any eggs that are already there. If you wish, you can put fake eggs, like golf balls, ping pong balls, plastic eggs, whatever, in the nest for her to brood while you are collecting the eggs you want. Then, at least once a day and I consider the late afternoon the best time, you need to check under the hen and remove any eggs that are not marked. Chicken eggs take about 21 days to hatch, some a bit less, some a bit more. When a chick hatches, it has absorbed the yolk and can go about three days without food or water. This allows the early chicks to stay on the nest until the late chicks hatch. If all the eggs are not started at the same time, the hen has to decide if she will let the chicks that have hatched die of thirst and starvation or leave the nest before all the chicks have hatched. She'll take the living chicks and leave the unhatched eggs.

The other hens will continue to lay eggs in the nest with the broody hen. You have to remove these daily. If you don't, bad things happen. The other hens can lay so many eggs that the broody hen cannot cover them all. When that happens, an egg that was developing is not covered, it cools off, and the chick inside dies. Then, that egg gets moved back under the hen, another developing egg gets moved out, it cools and dies. You will not get a good hatch when the hen has too many eggs. You also get the staggered hatch, which gets real complicated and often does not end well.

If you mark the eggs and remove the new ones daily, you will normally get a good hatch. However, some things can go wrong. Other hens can break eggs if they are crowding onto the nest to lay eggs. It does not happen a lot, but it does happen. The broody will normally leave the nest once a day to eat, drink, and go poop. If she comes back and another hen is on the nest laying, she may get confused and go sit on a different nest. Her eggs then cool off and the chicks inside die. Again, it does not happen a lot, but it does happen.

The other option is to move the broody to an isolated pen. This needs to be an area that is big enough for you to give her food and water and she can leave the nest to poop but the other hens cannot get to her nest to lay. Obviously, all the eggs need to be started at the same time for the same reasons as stated above. This is the solution I use.

There are some drawbacks to this method.

The hen may break from being broody when you move her. I'd suggest putting fake eggs in the nest for a couple of days before you give her the eggs you want her to hatch to assure she will stay broody.

You have to alter your routine to separately feed and water her daily. For most people this is not a big deal, but I don't know your normal practices.

A broody holds her poop all day and when it comes, it is big, messy and stinky. You'll need to keep her pen clean. This can discourage some people.

The pen obviously needs to be predator proof. Not always as easy as it sounds, especially if you do not have room in the coop.

I like to keep the pen in the coop or run with the other chickens so she stays a part of the flock. Otherwise, when she rejoins the flock, you wind up having to reintegrate a new hen. Often this is not a big problem if you put her with the flock with her chicks. Mama has such a bad attitude and will defend her chicks vigorously so the other chickens tend to leave her alone after a skirmish or two, but it can be a problem.

As I said, these are the basics as I see them. Others may have different opinions and experiences which I hope they share so you have a better chance of making an informed decision. There are strategies to overcome some of the problems I've mentioned but I'm trying to keep this simple.

 

[Jambruins]

Thanks for all the replies. I know my son will want to hold the baby chicks. Will he be able to hold them if the mother raises them or will she be too protective of them? Obviously with an incubator this wouldn't be a problem but I like the idea of having the mommy do the work.

 

[kandryve]

In my experience, we let the mother out for a few minutes a few times a day so she could do her business and took advantage of the fact that she wasn't there to peck at us!

It really depends on the hen... Ours is an exceptionally protective mother and was always fairly weary of our being around her too much so we could have seen it coming!

Good luck!