Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[Lady of McCamley]

Well, today I have noticed Olivia hanging with the big girls and her three chicks off to the side on their own......I've seen this each time I have been outside. She has always kept them in with the main flock (since they left the coop at week 2 or 3). So I am gonna guess that she has kicked them to the curb. I will watch when they are on the roost and see if they are next to her....but I know that a couple of nights I have seen where at least two of them have slept on top of the ñest box in the coop...it just didn't click that maybe she wouldn't let them cuddle. Actually I did notice them beside her last night and this morning there was baby poop on top of the nest box. So I guess this is it. I will focus on the fact that I may get an olive egg soon.

Sounds like they've integrated well (from Mom's introduction) and doing fine.

Hope they do lay a nice olive egg for you!
LofMc

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

Hey everybody, quick question. I have had my chicks in the house, they are about a month old. When I go near my broody now, she is squatting for me. Does that mean she is nearly done with her chicks? I was going to put them outside this week, but now I can't until later because we have a huge snow storm coming. I can tell Mama hen is about done with being stuck in the house.

I have noticed my broodies tend to leave the chicks much earlier in warm weather than in cold...her being inside in an artificially warm environment may have her thinking the little ones can do ok without her. if you can move her cage and all to a cooler location it may help keep her with them a short while longer and will give them a brief Window of acclimatization time with her still there to help.

I got my answer today. Mama hen just laid and egg!

 

[Faraday40]

Question on broodiness: Can it be turned off & on? If you break the broodiness, will it return quickly?

We have an English Bantam Orpington who showed some broodiness last fall, but was broken simply by placement on the roost each night for a week.

Now she is starting to spend a lot of time in the nest box each day (Maybe 6 hrs per day). I remove her but she goes back in. I'm putting her back on the roost each night. (She does the broody scream & isn't even sitting on eggs.) Last egg was laid yesterday, so perhaps she's just taking longer to lay. My gut tells me she wants to be broody, though.

Problem: My daughter's project requires incubator & broody hen setting eggs at the same time. I would prefer to wait another month or even 2 before starting the project. (It's too cold to care for the incubator chicks in the garage during winter.) On the other hand, if I keep trying to break her, will she want to volunteer for the project in 30-60 days? Last time when she stopped being broody, she went into a molt & stopped making eggs for 2.5 months.
Advice?

 

[fisherlady]

Question on broodiness: Can it be turned off & on? If you break the broodiness, will it return quickly?

We have an English Bantam Orpington who showed some broodiness last fall, but was broken simply by placement on the roost each night for a week.

Now she is starting to spend a lot of time in the nest box each day (Maybe 6 hrs per day). I remove her but she goes back in. I'm putting her back on the roost each night. (She does the broody scream & isn't even sitting on eggs.) Last egg was laid yesterday, so perhaps she's just taking longer to lay. My gut tells me she wants to be broody, though.

Problem: My daughter's project requires incubator & broody hen setting eggs at the same time. I would prefer to wait another month or even 2 before starting the project. (It's too cold to care for the incubator chicks in the garage during winter.) On the other hand, if I keep trying to break her, will she want to volunteer for the project in 30-60 days? Last time when she stopped being broody, she went into a molt & stopped making eggs for 2.5 months.
Advice?

To keep it short and simple.... nope.... you just can't predict a broody, each reacts differently to being 'broke' or being 'partially broody' but not going through with it for an extended. time. I have a couple of hens who 'played' broody for weeks, then finally parked but only stayed for a couple of weeks and then abandoned the nest (thankfully I had other broodies who took over the eggs) and the hens then spent 2 months or so in 'limbo', hanging around the coop but not laying and just acting like a real pain with everyone else in the coop. One of them did go back to being broody and had a successful brood a couple of months later, the other has never been broody again..

If you have her broken now, or never let her get into a deeper broody mood then you may be able to prod her into one later with a nest of fake eggs, but it is a roll of the dice for sure.

 

[vpatt]

Sounds like they've integrated well (from Mom's introduction) and doing fine.

Hope they do lay a nice olive egg for you!
LofMc

I think they were a bit hesitant to go into the coop on their own tonight, but they did. When I shut the coop up one of them was on top of the nest box and the other two were under mama's wings....so I guess she will still help out in a pinch. But they are kind of big for her to be snuggling.

 

[ochochicas]

Question on broodiness: Can it be turned off & on? If you break the broodiness, will it return quickly?

We have an English Bantam Orpington who showed some broodiness last fall, but was broken simply by placement on the roost each night for a week.

Now she is starting to spend a lot of time in the nest box each day (Maybe 6 hrs per day). I remove her but she goes back in. I'm putting her back on the roost each night. (She does the broody scream & isn't even sitting on eggs.) Last egg was laid yesterday, so perhaps she's just taking longer to lay. My gut tells me she wants to be broody, though.

Problem: My daughter's project requires incubator & broody hen setting eggs at the same time. I would prefer to wait another month or even 2 before starting the project. (It's too cold to care for the incubator chicks in the garage during winter.) On the other hand, if I keep trying to break her, will she want to volunteer for the project in 30-60 days? Last time when she stopped being broody, she went into a molt & stopped making eggs for 2.5 months.
Advice?

We hatched eggs in November and raised 20 chicks in the house. It really wasn't that bad. If you want to set some eggs now it would be "Spring" by the time they were ready to go outside. We set up a big kiddie-pool in the living room full of hay and perches and other stuff to keep the chicks busy. It was also covered with bird netting to keep our cats out. The chicks lived in there for 10 weeks until they had enough feathers to survive outside on their own. Twenty chicks was a bit many, I admit. If you decide to hatch in winter, maybe 6 or 8 would be a better number. Sorry but I can't answer the question about breaking a broody. I tried once and failed. LOL Now every time the hen goes broody I throw some eggs under her.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Question on broodiness: Can it be turned off & on? If you break the broodiness, will it return quickly?

We have an English Bantam Orpington who showed some broodiness last fall, but was broken simply by placement on the roost each night for a week.

Now she is starting to spend a lot of time in the nest box each day (Maybe 6 hrs per day). I remove her but she goes back in. I'm putting her back on the roost each night. (She does the broody scream & isn't even sitting on eggs.) Last egg was laid yesterday, so perhaps she's just taking longer to lay. My gut tells me she wants to be broody, though.

Problem: My daughter's project requires incubator & broody hen setting eggs at the same time. I would prefer to wait another month or even 2 before starting the project. (It's too cold to care for the incubator chicks in the garage during winter.) On the other hand, if I keep trying to break her, will she want to volunteer for the project in 30-60 days? Last time when she stopped being broody, she went into a molt & stopped making eggs for 2.5 months.
Advice?

I agree with Fisherlady, broodiness can't be turned on or off...but I personally believe you can condition a hen to not take brooding seriously if you discourage her to brood... unless she is a die hard like a Silkie or game who will ignore all efforts to break her.

So, no you can't count on her going broody when you want your project later...she *might* come back in if you discourage her now...but her prior behavior is probably what she'll do again. Because you have to wait for the hen to be in the mood, mechanical incubators were created so that the industry didn't have to wait for a hen but could incubate when you wanted to.

I would encourage you to rethink not being able to brood the incubator chicks in the garage to see if there were any possibility of making it work. Remember the hatched incubator chicks will be under a heat lamp to keep them warm, and the ambient cold in the garage won't matter as they will adjust their temperature by going closer or farther from the lamp. Winter brooding just means you will have to take a bit longer to transition them to outdoor temps...but as ochochicas stated...it will be spring by then. Also, a high time to brood chicks is late January/February and in my area that's when chicks start arriving in the feed stores so that we can get them grown up for laying by summer.

Good luck with your project...let us know how it goes.
LofMc

 

[minihorse927]

Well, I took the 6 eggs away from broody and put them in the incubator so she's only got 15 of the 21 left. All 15 are developing under her and the 5 (I dropped one) that I put in the incubator are developing great too! Woohoo!

 

[Faraday40]

Well, I took the 6 eggs away from broody and put them in the incubator so she's only got 15 of the 21 left. All 15 are developing under her and the 5 (I dropped one) that I put in the incubator are developing great too! Woohoo!

That's amazing! It will be interesting to see how many hatch. What's the temp where she's incubating? Is she outside in the coop or separated? Is this her 1st time or is she a pro?

 

[minihorse927]

That's amazing! It will be interesting to see how many hatch.  What's the temp where she's incubating?  Is she outside in the coop or separated?  Is this her 1st time or is she a pro?

she's a 7 month old English chocolate orpington. 1st time sitting. She's in the coop with everyone. She had some part time broody helpers but no one stays for more than an hour or two. It's been ranging from 40° for highs to 10° for a low since the 23rd when she started sitting.