Not sure where to put my broody hen?

[BlueEggsDaily]

Hi!! Thanks in advance for any answers.

My sweet Araucana is broody- didn't realize it till a couple days ago because we kept taking the eggs under her the past week - just thought she was laying.

We do have a rooster that we raised this year and he gets it on with his 22 girls daily, and since this part of chicken raising is new to us we are not sure what to do from here. She is sitting in the coop on the eggs each day now for the last couple days.

My question- Do we move her elsewhere? Other hens continue to lay where she is and she continues to "adopt" the eggs. She won't be able to sit on 20+ eggs eventually. Where would we put her?

Any and all advice or thoughts would be great.

Thanks!

 

[cypressdrake]

I throw all the hens out the hen house by 11 am and lock the door. All broody hens will be free ranging with the flock, and the roosters get their minds straight.

 

[donrae]

When I have a broody in with the flock (that's my preference) I gather the amount of eggs I want her to brood. I then mark them with a sharpie, drawing circles all around the egg so it's easy to see. I give her all the eggs at once, day or night doesn't matter. I then check under her each day to remove any eggs the other hens have added. You don't want her incubating added eggs, they won't all hatch at the same time. Eggs that have been under a hen most of the day are still fine to eat, it takes a good couple days for development to start.

you do run the risk of another hen breaking eggs when you do this. It's not real common in my flock, but it has happened.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

If you are interested in hatching eggs I have done it two ways, left the hen in the nest she has chosen, marking the eggs I want to hatch and daily removing any extra layed, it can become precarious when they hatch because chicks might fall out and die on the floor.

The best way is to make a nice separate area with a nest and eggs and hope she settles on them, you can control more of the incubation and hatch this way. I have had a hard time getting this perfect plan to work and usually end up with the first option and the chaos that one entails.

Otherwise if you don't want her hatching you need to break her of broodiness by putting her in a separate wire bottom cage off the floor where she can't sit tight and heat up.

 

[aart]

I was able to use my 4x6' coop partition and a portable floor nest for my broody that I allowed to set.
Put her in there with fake eggs and it took a full day for her to settle onto the nest, then the next day I gave her fresh fertile eggs.
About a week or so after hatch I installed a creep feed area, took the mesh partition wall down and let her back into the flock.
She got into some pecking order fights, but that calmed down after a couple days, chicks where never threatened and she integrated them into the flock for me.

Or you could break her of her broodiness with a broody cage.
Ya gotta think about if you have room for more chickens and what you will do with the inevitable cockerels.

 

[BlueEggsDaily]

THANK YOU all of you! Such great suggestions. I will leave her where she is since she seems to really like that spot (tried moving her and she didn't like that) and I will mark her eggs for sure! I haven't noticed any other hens wanting to lay next to her but marking them is smart and checking her eggs too. I'm SO excited to watch her become a mommy such a fun time.

 

[Mrs. K]

It will be the longest 3 weeks of your life. Now they may tell you 21 days, but my hens have always hatched on day 20.

I just leave them where they are, take a towel down with you every two - three days,(to keep her from pecking you) hold it in both hands, and flip it over her head and gently pull her from the nest, being careful not to pull out some eggs too, sometimes they tuck them up under their wings. When you first put her down, she may act stiff and dazed, but she should quickly snap out of it, go out and whip a few layers, growl at the rooster, eat a bit, a little dust bath, and within 1/2 hour should be back on the nest.

One of the problems can be that she will get back on the wrong nest. However, I had one do that in OCTOBER, and really the eggs were cool to the touch, but I just moved her back, and the eggs hatched just fine, (advice I got here, and they were right) Afterwards, I got to thinking about it, and the eggs themselves must create a little heat.

Chicks and a broody hen take this hobby to a whole new level.

ps. on a dual purpose hen, I have found that if I set 8-9 eggs, I get better hatching rates than if I set 12.

good luck,

Mrs K