Managing/Encouraging broody hens with a "Broody Box" ***Hatching Pics!

[Winsor Woods]

Hey Tracy,

Thanks for the suggestions. Tonight is end of day 3 so I'll be candling the eggs. When I peeked under her today, all the eggs were on the same plane so I think you're right. They just move them around a bunch.

Sorry to hear about your broody box tantrum. The first time I put Dottie in the broody box, she did a similar thing. I just don't think she was "broody enough." (Are there even different degrees of broodiness?) Anyways, before you put the real eggs under your hen, make sure you mark each one with a pencil on the ends of the eggs. That way you can pull any that get laid by other hens. My neighbor did something similar to what you're going to try and it turned out a disaster because the other hens would lay into the set clutch and break eggs, etc. Just be ready. It can be done but you've got to be vigilant.

Dan

 

[Winsor Woods]

Tonight marks the end of day 3. I went out after sunset and candled the eggs. It appears that there are blood vessels forming on the yolk of most of the eggs. I'm unsure of 3 eggs but I'll have a better feel for it on Day 7 candling. So far so good.

Dan

 

[Winsor Woods]

Today marks the end of day 7. One week done and one third of the way there. I just got back in from candling the eggs and 10 are definitely fertile and developing, one I'm unsure of and one has what I believe to be the tell-tale blood ring signifying the death of the embryo. I marked the dead egg but left it in there for the time being. I'm still new to candling so on Day 17 I'll candle again. If no changes, I'll be removing that egg before lock-down.

I'm a little concerned about Dottie, my broody. Even though I open the broody box after I've cleared the rest of the hens from the coop, she rarely gets out. I haven't seen any of those "broody poops" from her yet. I can tell she's been eating some but not enough to make her poop. Today I offered her food and water from my hand and she ate and drank greedily. She has food and water in her broody box but she's just not really using it as much as I think she should. Even when I pull her from the nest and put her on the coop floor, she doesn't take a break. It's right back to those eggs. I hope she can make it another two weeks like this. Her wattles have started to get pale as well. The red color is fading. Is that a sign of something? Other than that, she's as "normal" as a broody can be.

Dan

 

[crazy chook]

Hi Dan,

I hope it all goes well for you this time.

Dottie is a very pretty looking bird.
Don't worry too much about her, she knows when she needs to get off the eggs to eat and drink and poo.

Best wishes,

 

[SouthernChick]

Quote:
They will set on anything

too funny!

 

[flakey chick]

Dan,

I think it would help if you could put food and water within reach while she's on the nest- at the very least, be sure she can get water while on the nest. Sometimes I take my hen a little mash: just feed with water. I feed her while she's on the nest and she wolfs it down. Then she realizes ok it's time to get up and be a chicken for a while. After half an hour or so, she turns back into a brooda-dactl.

BTW we had an early hatch this Thursday. Only one egg hatched. most of the others seemed un/under-developed. They say the first one to hatch is almost always a boy. This one better be a girl. We have named her Launa as in "La Una" -spanish for "the one". It was too much effort to get just one rooster.

-Carol

 

[tracyork]

Hi Dan,
My last broody wouldn't touch her food or water for the first week or so either. I got worried, and moved her food within reach but no change. Then someone suggested I feed her something she couldn't resist... so I gave her a dish with a little cottage cheese, canned peaches and cooked brown rice, right in front of the nest. She devoured it and started doing the normal broody poop. I didn't give that to her daily, but every few days I would give her something similar to that first mix and she would always eat it and poop. She stuck it out and was successful. She lost a lot of weight and took quite a while to recover from her broodiness, but I suspect that is normal, and she wasn't quite a year when it started so she was small to begin.

Good Luck!
Tracy

 

[cwhit590]

Quote:
Congrats on the fertile eggs. Hopefully all goes well!

I think Dottie should be fine...you may just need to feed her a little by hand each day if she won't eat otherwise. I don't know what you're feeding her, but maybe some special treats would perk her up a bit. I give my broodies a little bit of birdseed and some cat food (for protein) every now and then and they seem to do fine. Maybe some treats that have more protein like cat food or scrambled eggs would help...?

 

[Winsor Woods]

Thanks for all the replies! I think I'll try some hard boiled egg with Dottie tomorrow. I did this with Donner and she loved it. I've hand fed Dottie some food but she's just not as enthusiastic about it as Donner was. I'll let you all know if she likes the Hard boiled eggs. I also held her waterer for her while she sat on the nest. She did take a few drinks so that made me feel better.

Dan

 

[Winsor Woods]

It's day 11 and we're halfway through this broody incubation session. I did go out and hand feed Dottie some hard boiled eggs and she was pretty ravenous when she was eating but it came and went in spurts. She's woof down for a few seconds and then just space out. I had to move the egg bits around to attract her attention and then she's wolf some more down. Then she'd space out again! If I didn't know better I'd think she was stoned out of her gourd. LOL!

After she ate, I held her waterer close and she chugged a bunch. Then I heard her body making all the gurgles and bubble like noises so I gently removed her from the nest to the coop floor and she had a massive broody poop. She drank some more from the coop waterer and then pecked the sand floor some before quickly returning to the nest.

I did lose one egg yesterday. All 12 were there in the morning but when I fed her some egg in the afternoon I noticed some egg shell in the nest and only counted 11 eggs. I removed the shells and then inspected the remaining eggs. They appear to be undamaged. I noticed that she didn't choose the "bad" egg I marked as the one to break. LOL. So the most I can possibly hatch now is 10. I'm not complaining about that, though. She's keeping the eggs and nest MUCH cleaner than Donner. Dottie has only pooped in the nest once and it was on the very edge so she was trying to get it out. The eggs are remarkably clean.

One thing I noticed though...When I open up the broody box I've been opening the top. When she returns to the box after being out of the nest, she'll hop up on the edge of the box and then jump down into the box but she jumps straight onto the nest! Ouch! So when she's out of the nest, I'll only let her back in through the side door so she can't jump on the nest and possibly break more eggs.

Dan