Need advice on sitting

[Cowboyffa84]

My bantam hen has started laying.......BUT shes not sitting at all shes young and seems to be more interested on running around the run all day chasing bugs what can i do to get her to sit? the coop is 3 feet off the ground do i need to put a nest box or something in the run or what?

 

[abanjaf]

Are you asking how you can get your little hen to go broody and hatch some eggs for you? Some breeds do not go broody no matter what you do. We've bred the broodiness right out of them. So knowing what kind of bantam you have would be helpful. Also, if she's just started laying, you don't want to try and hatch out those eggs. They're simply too small. These eggs are your hen's first efforts at laying. I would wait a few months before attempting to let her hatch any babies. Having a nest box may be helpful, but it's kinda funny. Chickens may decide to make a nest in the funniest of places and certainly not where you might have liked her to! When the time comes, if your girl is the broody type, you can leave her eggs in the nest (or place a "fake" egg in the nest to try to entice her to that spot). She won't start setting on the eggs till she has several to lay on

 

[Cowboyffa84]

Well right now i have spangled, BB Reds, And blue wheatons all are OEB's they have 4 nest boxes for each color of bird and they all seem to know where to lay the eggs just dont know how to sit lol they only go on the box 2 lay, and sit on the ladder to sleep at night and the roosters are the only ones that sleep in the coops i have no clue why i put them in there every night for the past month and the only ones that learned was the roosters

 

[gryeyes]

Chickens are either broody or they're not. Some chickens never go broody at all. Some breeds are known to have a liklihood of going broody.... but there's very little we can do to make 'em broody. It's hormonal. Most chickens lay eggs and do NOT set on them. The egg production industry has mostly bred the broodiness out of chickens, because setting hens stop laying eggs after they build their clutch to hatch; incubation takes 21 days. Then the momma hen is still out of egg laying production whilst she raises the chicks to 5 or 6 weeks of age or so.

People either grumble about having a broody hen (because they can go broody even if there aren't any fertilized eggs!) or are hoping like heck they can GET a broody hen.