If you have a older breed that goes broody from time to time, you can trigger her to go broody. Leave 4 or 5 fake eggs in a quiet and seperated nest-box where you want a chicken to breed in soring. Within a few days - few weeks one of you’re hens might get broody. And if she goes broody/ stays on the eggs, you can replace the fake eggs with marked fertilised eggs.
This works great for my Dutch bantams, Silkies, Cochins, Wyandotte's etc. But this does not work with common hybrid layers or for most chickens selected as a laying breed who lay over 200 eggs a year.
