Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[BittyBanty]

One last gratuitous picture here before you see me 3 weeks from now over in "What Breed or Gender" hollering "Is this a roo or a pullet?"

Here they are a whole 24 hours old.

 

[Miss Lydia]

What a precious picture Bitty, love it

what breed is your hen? I have chicks that were 4 weeks old on the 6th, and I can almost bet I have a roo, his comb is already getting red.

 

[BittyBanty]

Hatchery EOGB, I got them from my neighbor who has a bunch that run wild on his propery (in the city!)

 

[Miss Lydia]

Thats what I thought game, I have 1 full game hen, she is not old english but looks just like your hen, she is now the grandma to all of our little chicks running around here. Is she friendly? Mine is but she is a nervous bird.

 

[BarefootMom]

Quote:
I don't know if she killed it or not, but it was fine as far as I could tell and then we found it buried by the food dish. So I don't know? The duckling came from chick day at the feed store...it is a Rouen and my hubby couldn't pass it up! lol he/she was only $1.15 so I said why not right? We were just given a young Rouen drake so I hope this one is a girl *fingers crossed*

 

[BittyBanty]

Quote:
None of them are super friendly since they were wild when I got them last summer. She is the friendliest of the three. She will sometimes come to eat scratch from my hand but is nervous. They have all learned to come see what I have first thing in the morning when I let them out of the pen. The way to a chicken's heart is definitely through it's stomach!

 

[Sudsy Chick]

I've finally finished this whole thread

It took me days and days! And now I have a question for the broody experts! But first the story...

Our Australorp, Panda, started puffing up and making funny noises a few weeks ago. We're fairly new to chickens (we adopted these three as sisters in September - hatched in July) and we knew she was not acting normally but didn't really get it at first. The other two chickens - Juno the Giant Jersey and Henrietta the bantam Deleware were always outside squacking at Panda to get out of the nest...they have two nests but don't like to perform next of each other

So I Googled it

and found this thread looking what this behavior was, and how to stop it. Using some of the advice, we tried to break her by picking her up and walking her around, eggs were removed from the nests as soon as they were laid, etc. And she continued to sit all day unless I physically got her out of the coop. And the more pages I read in this thread...the more I realized, we could do this! Panda would be such a good mommy! We wanted more chickens and just figured we would add adults...but this thread made me realize it would be much less stressful (and exciting!) to just let her have her way. I convinced my husband and we put two fake eggs under her, moved her into a pet traveler setup (so the other girls could have their nest back). Then we ordered a dozen Black/Splash/Blue Ameraucana eggs from this site! 16 eggs arrived (I love the dozens around here!) in just a couple days and I learned that it is not as easy as it sounds to stuff that many eggs under a sleeping chicken!

She took right to them and spread herself out and started talking to them

She has never pecked me and allows me to make sure her eggs are all tucked in when she gets back on her eggs after her daily excursion.

Now, six days after we did 'the stuffing', we have another girl, Juno the GJ, that won't get out of her nest. Four days ago, the last time Panda & Juno were together on one of Panda's supervised breaks, Panda fluffed up at Juno & then Juno pecked Panda to make her stop it and fluffed up herself. Panda fluffed down and chicken drama was over. But the next day, Juno didn't get out in the morning with Henrietta. As recently as today Juno is still laying & we're still removing, but poor Henrietta is all alone and even the crows are picking on her.

We tried pulling Juno out of the next and blocking access to the interior of the coop, but she pecks the door, gets mad, and finds the darkest spot available, which is next to the pet carrier that Panda is in. Which upsets Panda, not ok! So the door is open again.

This is her third day of us staying in the nest all day, sitting on nothing and continuing to lay eggs daily. We check about every hour until she lays the egg, so she is not allowed to lay on it for long at all. When I get her out, I carry her (and she is a BIG BIRD!!! LOL) for several minutes around the yard, and when I put her down she goes running back to the nest not even stopping to eat or drink along the way. But I know she is getting out - those broody poos are pretty unmistakeable!

After the long-winded story - here are the questions

What would you do here? Give Juno 1/2 the eggs? Now or later?

Or keep trying to break her? Or something else?

What to do about lonely Henrietta - lowest on the chicken totem? Do stuffed "birds" (my kids have webkins) ever help? I try to hang out with her, which she enjoys, but I can't be out there all the time!

A few things to consider:
* Pecking order is Juno, Panda, Henrietta
* We do use all the eggs - every single one for eating. We had to supplement from the store a little bit before, but now with Panda not laying we're having to supplement even more
* We are in the process of building a second coop - but it will not be finished until next weekend, which we figured would be plenty of time when we only had one broody hen!
* Henrietta - who is normally a daily layer - missed the first three days that Juno spent in the next. She finally laid again today.

Thanks so much in advance! dawn

 

[Fuffy]

I knew this was a bad idea!

I have kept away from this thread since I lost my whole clutch, and now I'm just plain jealous! I want chickies! I want Buff Sussex chickies, to be precise!!!

Well I guess it won't be this year!

Congratulations to all of you who have lovely broody mammas and lots of little chickies to care for!

In the meantime...Well did I mention that I got a couple of mutt pullets just to bring up my egg count to 2? (The Freebie Sisters: Phoebe the Freebie and Helen) Well they both started laying: Nice little eggs of slightly different colours so I can tell them apart. And now Helen has been broody for 3 weeks!!!!

I'm just letting her get on with it for now...I feel it's a bit too soon for her to have a clutch as she still has some growing to do. She has earned herself the name 'Pancake Hen' ... I swear you could fit 20 eggs under her!!!

Maybe next year!!!

 

[kingdr85]

dawng - I would give her some of the eggs now, that way they both can hatch. The other hen will do just fine being somewhat alone for 2 weeks. I only have 2 hens and one is broody now, the other one seems to enjoy all of the treats and best stops to herself. You should definetly split the eggs now so she has time to incubate them for a while.

 

[Miss Lydia]

and dawng, broodiness is contagious so don't be surprised if Henrietta doesn't join the party

and so sorry to hear you lost the whole cluth Fuffy, what happened? it's not too late to have a broody for this year. 5 of my broodys are just under 1 year old and I had 7 so she isn't too young to have a go at it. my other 2 of my broodies are under 2.