Thank You....helped me to understand......coffee1, the thing about broodies is that while they would prefer to sit on eggs, they will also sit on wooden eggs, unfertile eggs, imaginary eggs.....You don't want this to happen because for one, the broody won't lay eggs while she is brooding, and for two, hormones can make her a raging looney, and three, she generally will eat just once a day and gets out of condition, and four, she might keep this up long enough to seriously endanger her health.
So, with a broody, either you interrupt her brooding so she goes back to normal, or you let her sit on eggs that are fertile. WHich means, you will have chicks, and not always at a reasonable time of the year, and not always when you have the space for her to be broody in peace (without other hens climbing on the nest, etc.
But, broodies are so much fun. Easiest way to raise chicks, and I think the chicks hare healthier and better foragers than ones we brood. Last spring I had a broody whose sisters wanted to be broody too....and when she hatched the chicks, and I finally allowed the sisters access to mom and chicks, the sisters helped raise the babies.
This is a pic of the three sisters and their chicks. ALl three mamas would call the chicks, feed the chicks, let the chicks hide in their feathers (there are at least 4 chicks in this picture that you can see, but 11 chicks were there) but the mama that hatched them outranked the other two.
I was picturing his dunking a broody and it sounded hilarious but video would have been fantastic!! Ralphie from now on your wife should tape your antics!
