Not sure where to start/possible broody hen

[ambrosia79]

We have always bought our chicks, but now we want to see if we can hatch our own. Well, let one of our hens hatch her own because we don't have an incubator. We have 22 hens and 1 rooster (Delaware). We have many breeds of hens, some we don't even know what they are. Range from White Leghorn, EE, RIR, dark Brahma, Black Star and red sex link, plus a few tractor supply unknowns that are supposed to lay white eggs but haven't started laying yet. Some are young and just starting to lay pullet sized eggs. We have one hen acting funny. I think she is RIR. She'll be on 4 or 5 eggs in the nesting box and when I go to move her she puffs up huge and makes crazy noises. But, I can move her by lifting her puffed up tail and she'll walk away. She gives me nasty looks, but hasn't pecked me yet. So my questions:

1. Is she broody?
2. If I want her to incubate eggs, should I remove the pullet sized eggs?
3. How many eggs will she need before sitting on it permanently?
4. Will she still get up and eat/drink or do I need to move it closer to her? (water is currently outside the coop, food inside but across the coop from the nesting boxes)
5. If she does hatch eggs, do I take the chicks from her and do as I did with other baby chicks or can I let her raise them around all the other chickens?

I do have an empty coop I can move her to if that simplifies things.

 

[CascadiaRiver]

1. I think so. She acts like my broodies.
2. I dont know much about this, I think you might as well to be safe ^^
3. In my experience they either just collect eggs until they cannot sit on them properly anymore or a handful.
4. I would give her, her own little dishes of food and water to be safe.
5. Now for me this is a hard question. Its a beautiful experience watching our two girls this year raise 4 babies each but in the end the babies were very anti social and the mommas are back high on the food chain and peck and attack the babies since they're lower. Next year we are just going to raise them ourselves so we can have friendly babies, but I have no idea how the momma will react to hatching babies but not raising them.

 

[CascadiaRiver]

Moving her to the empty coop later in the process should be good ^^

 

[ambrosia79]

Thank you!