Moving a setting hen?

[Crooked-Creek]

I agree with you Jack. Each time we have left broody hens in the nesting box it doesn't seem to work out. If the broody hen's success isn't interrupted by other hens, its messed up because the broody hen has to choose whether to abandon the majority of her eggs to keep one or two chicks warm that fell out of the nesting box. I would suggest at least placing the broody hen on the ground if she is left in the coop. Good Luck

 

[Cass]

I noticed a lot of new people to BYC posting replies. That is wonderful. Welcome. New people add things that us oldsters have forgotten. HOWEVER hitting the "quote" button in the lower right hand corner of the post you are aiming your advice toward helps eliminate confusion. Sometimes advice posted for one person is directly contrary to what another poster should do; without the quote of the post your are replying to it gets confusing.

 

[jenndk]

So we managed to get our broody hen's nest box off of the wall without harming the eggs or disturbing her, just draped a towel over her, then moved her box inside of an x-large plastic dog crate that I spread hay out in the bottom of and put some water in the corner(it is inside of the coop). I did this in the evening and after I removed the towel, she never got off the nest. A couple of days later when I was feeding she hopped up on the side of her nest box so I opened the crate and let her come out, she ate, pooped, flapped her wings a bunch, stretched and took a dust bath, then went back inside the crate to her nest and I closed the door again. Her nest box is a milk crate with hay in the bottom. I have been starting to think about once the chicks hatch and the sides of the milk crate are kind of high...I was worried some might hop out and be stuck outside of the nest, or they might not be able to get out at all. Yesterday, she wanted to come out at feeding time again, so while she was out, I removed the milk crate/nest box from the dog crate and added more hay to the dog crate floor. I carefully took the eggs out of the nest box/milk crate and placed them in the hay in the middle of the dog crate, I tried to put them in the same order and position that they were in before I moved them. After she had refreshed herself, she came back in and went into the dog crate and positioned herself over the eggs again.
They should start hatching Thursday or Friday.

 

[CAjerseychick]

Late to this thread-- I had a question about moving eggs from a nest -- are there rules to this? I put the eggs in my shirt to move them but some of them may have gotten turned-- is that ok? Was not sure-- they are under my broody now and she is very happy....

 

[figlover]

My first broody hen is a silkie. I was new to this phenomenon and here's what happened:
1. She (Lulu) was in a large coop all winter with a silkie rooster (Harry) and another Hen (Big Bird).
2. I didn't realize at first that she was broody but when I did, I placed her in a small nest which just fit in the coop.
3. Unbeknownst to me she was unobtrusively taking each of Big Bird's eggs every day until she had FOURTEEN.
4. I thought this was charming and thought I'd get a lot of chicks!!
5. Unfortunately the other two were bothering her. The rooster even tried to uh-huh right in her little nest.
6. I took the little nest out of the coop and made her own coop.
7. Meanwhile I started candling the eggs at night and gradually found many of the eggs were filled with a disgusting red blob and some were not fertilized. I learned that if an egg is bad it can break in the nest and contaminate everything.
8. I continued candling until she had four eggs.
9. One day, when I went to do a candling, there was a chick. You can imagine how excited I was.
10. I was very stupid about the need for all eggs to be fertilized on the one day. Dah! She can't be nesting and taking care of a new chick at the same time!!
11. I was slow on the uptake but luckily Lulu was not. She nudged the other eggs out and ignored them. I took them away
12. Lulu and baby (Baby) are doing well.

In essence
1. Moving the chicken and the eggs is not a problem as long as you do it quickly and upset the hen as little as possible. She will quickly re-tuck them under her on her own.
2. Read read read

By the way, Big Bird is now sitting on her own egg. [One egg].

 

[Cass]

Late to this thread-- I had a question about moving eggs from a nest -- are there rules to this? I put the eggs in my shirt to move them but some of them may have gotten turned-- is that ok? Was not sure-- they are under my broody now and she is very happy....

Yes, there are lots of rules. You can follow them all and have none of them hatch. You can ignore them all and have them all hatch.

But basically you should not turn the eggs from how the hen has them oriented if you have to move the eggs to a new nest. I use a dishpan with shavings in the bottom to gently lift the eggs up and put them down just how they were in the old nest. Repeat to move to new nest. If the eggs are fairly fresh you don't have to be as careful, because the chick isn't very big in the egg yet. If it is close to hatching you need to be sure you do not tip the large end of the egg down...the chick's head should be there waiting to pip into the air sac at the large end, then pip through the shell to hatch.

They say to not move eggs after the 18th day....lockdown if they were in an incubator. I have done that too. The chicks were actually peeping in the shells and I wanted them to hatch under a different broody. They hatched. I was really really careful moving them tho.

When possible move the whole nest box to a new location , instead of the eggs. (that is why I made all my nest boxes moveable. They have holes in the top part of them and hang on the wall on extended screws so I can move them as I need. Mostly I just drop them to the floor at about Day 19 of the incubation period, so the chicks can't fall out and get hurt and can crawl back into the nest if they do creep out.

 

[jenndk]

So our hen hatched 13 chicks out of 18 eggs! So far they are all looking good. 3 of the 5 eggs left had nothing in them upon candling with a flashlight. The other two may have had something, but they were dead, not sure at what point that happened. I took those all out of the nest and the broken egg shells and I am hoping she will take chicks back in the nest(which is a dog crate) this evening so I can lock them up. They can't leave the coop at this point though.

Just wanted to add, I posted about this hatch on this thread because this was the hen we moved around a little.

 

[LAChickens]

I posted about the garbage box hen I discovered. Well, now the hen has been joined by another Nankin hen. They are sharing the same clutch of eggs. Yesterday, I set up a nest for them in the brood box I use. I carefully moved the eggs (day 9) and then the hens. I stood back. The hens had an absolute fit. The roosters had an absolute fit. I showed them the nest and gave them 15 minutes to sit on the eggs again, no go. So, the eggs went back to the garbage box, the hens returned to sit on them. They are still there this morning. I really don't want the eggs they are setting to hatch, I'd rather give them some of the day-old bantams that arrived yesterday.

The plan was to try to slip some day olds under them tonight, then if they accept them, to move the moms and chicks again to a safer spot tomorrow.

Updates:

• No luck with that! The hen that has been setting longer would likely have been fine with the chicks (bantam mottled cochin), but the hen that joined her would have none of it. She latched onto the webbing near my thumb and twisted HARD. Luckily, no chicks were injured.

• I moved the hens to a new pen. I set them up with a nest box and gave them a few standard breed eggs to hatch. It took a few hours, but they found the nest and are back brooding the new clutch. The two hens are again sharing the box and devoted setters.

 

[Brookliner]

I have a Bantam Cochin hen that has gone broody. Stella has been broody for a while. I ordered eggs of 2 varieties of bantam chicken that I have wanted to raise and had a friend incubate them. Hatch day is in the next couple of days. Stella has been occupying one of the nest boxes in the main coop and I have been taking the eggs out from under her for the last month (they are not fertile). 2 days ago I prepared my broody coop to house Stella and the 6 new chicks that will be arriving shortly. I placed 3 dummy woden eggs in the new broody coop nest box and after dark walked with Stella in my arms over to the broody coop and settled her on the wooden eggs in the new nest. Below is a picture of Stella the morning after I moved her. She is the picture of a very broody contented hen. She even purrs.

When the 6 chicks arrive in the next couple of days, I will slip my hand in and remove the wooden eggs and place the chicks behind Stella in the nest box. She will settle them under her and begin the adventure of raising chicks that she has no idea aren’t her own.

The nest boxes I use are black plastic covered (removable lid) vegetable bins that I bought at Walmart. I use Hi Fiber Gold hay horse forage in the nest. It is heat dried and contains no mold spores. They are easy to clean and sanitize and my DH made a chick ladder so there won’t be any chicks that are unable to get back into the nest and under the hen.

 

[GallusSapiens]

Hi, everyone.

Sorry it's taken so long to post our progress. We decided to leave our broody hen where she was. On the morning of day 21, I checked on her and heard some peeps. I closed the door to the coop to keep the other 3 hens out (we have only 4). They roosted on the perch in the run that evening. They weren't very happy about it not having their normal place to lay eggs, but they survived. All the chicks stayed contentedly under wings that day and into the next. Early that evening, I lifted her out of the nesting box, and put the chicks into a cardboard box. We relocated them to their new location (a 4x2x2 rabbit hutch on a table I made to fit it inside the run), with a portable nesting box in it, then we put her in. The all settled down contentedly. I covered the whole thing with a sheet.

It's been two weeks and they are all doing great. 8 of 12 eggs hatched. I let her sit on the other 4 for an extra day (more than 48 hours after the last one hatched) along with the chicks, but they did not hatch.

Here's a little video of the chicks at just a couple days old: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STTEkEEUAuw

Thanks for everyone's advice. Since we were on vacation for over a week and returned the day before hatching began, it worked out well for us that she could stay put . It was a lot easier for our neighbors to take care of things this way.