Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[aatx]

Curious question... I see a lot of warnings not to use 'pullet eggs' to hatch and in my mind think of that to mean the first eggs that a hen lays. All of my chickens have been laying 3-5 months now and are 42 weeks old. Their eggs were smaller the first month or so that they laid, but have been consistent in size since then. This weekend, I let a broody who proved herself on golf balls, have a few of the best looking eggs. I wish she had waited another month or so to go broody, but this is what happened. This is already her 3rd or 4th time to go broody, so I have a feeling this may be her thing (she's a silkie). So, do all of you wait until your chickens are at least a full year old before hatching their eggs or have you used them a bit early, like I did? We'd like to add more breeds with hatching eggs later on, but certainly felt like it would be wiser to practice on our own "free" eggs to let the broody prove herself first.

 

[bumpercarr]

Curious question... I see a lot of warnings not to use 'pullet eggs' to hatch and in my mind think of that to mean the first eggs that a hen lays. All of my chickens have been laying 3-5 months now and are 42 weeks old. Their eggs were smaller the first month or so that they laid, but have been consistent in size since then. This weekend, I let a broody who proved herself on golf balls, have a few of the best looking eggs. I wish she had waited another month or so to go broody, but this is what happened. This is already her 3rd or 4th time to go broody, so I have a feeling this may be her thing (she's a silkie). So, do all of you wait until your chickens are at least a full year old before hatching their eggs or have you used them a bit early, like I did? We'd like to add more breeds with hatching eggs later on, but certainly felt like it would be wiser to practice on our own "free" eggs to let the broody prove herself first.

I hatch mine (I use an incubator most of the time unless I have a cooperative hen) when they are laying regularly, as long as I'm sure that they are being covered by the cock bird in the pen. I raise brahmas, so that is usually at about 10 months, but my other breeds...when I had them...I'd wait until I was sure that they were laying at least 4-5 a week.

 

[KrystalRose]

My girls are about 9 months old, they were all just about doing an egg a day before my girl went broody and I gave her some eggs. Hopefully they will be ok, I was going on the assumption that if they were laying regular and able to be broody enough to sit all the way through good enough to hatch eggs, that they were mature enough. They would be making babies in the wild by this time right?

 

[fisherlady]

I consider them 'pullet eggs' for the first month or two when they are laying on an irregular schedule, varying sizes and double yolks or weird shapes.... basically they are 'working out the kinks' so to speak in their reproduction system. Once the level out and start producing on a regular schedule and a consistent size I don't worry so much about it.

Since the first month or two is more likely to produce oddities and double yolks it is more risky to set those eggs, though they certainly may hatch if a rooster is around (I have never hatched a double yolk, so can't state an absolute about that). Since I like to provide the highest likelihood of success for my broodies I just avoid any of the really young hen's eggs, there is no reason for me to let a hen set on an 'iffy' pullet egg if I have eggs from mature hens to use.... it is just a matter of preference and willingness to take risks.

 

[ochochicas]

Curious question... I see a lot of warnings not to use 'pullet eggs' to hatch and in my mind think of that to mean the first eggs that a hen lays. All of my chickens have been laying 3-5 months now and are 42 weeks old. Their eggs were smaller the first month or so that they laid, but have been consistent in size since then. This weekend, I let a broody who proved herself on golf balls, have a few of the best looking eggs. I wish she had waited another month or so to go broody, but this is what happened. This is already her 3rd or 4th time to go broody, so I have a feeling this may be her thing (she's a silkie). So, do all of you wait until your chickens are at least a full year old before hatching their eggs or have you used them a bit early, like I did? We'd like to add more breeds with hatching eggs later on, but certainly felt like it would be wiser to practice on our own "free" eggs to let the broody prove herself first.

Pullet eggs are generally eggs that are small. They are usually laid by younger pullets and the size increases as they get older. This is not always the case though. I've had pullets that started laying late and their first eggs were over 60 grams. I also have young pullets (25 week range) that laid one small egg and then started laying normal sized 55 -60 gram eggs after that.

The problem with hatching the small pullet eggs is that the chick inside will not have enough room to grow and they will be smaller than they should be at hatch. As a result, they will be weaker than chicks from normal sized eggs and will have a higher mortality rate.

My rule of thumb for Large Fowl breeds is to not incubate any eggs less than 50 grams. I have hatched some Ameraucana eggs that were slightly smaller (48 grams) and had a 100% hatch rate. I also just incubated two full sized eggs from my Isbar pullet who is only 6 months old. Both eggs hatched although the chicks do seem a little smaller and slower than the others.

So, to answer your question, if you have some normal sized eggs to put under your broody, go for it! As long as your hens are healthy the eggs/chicks should be fine.

 

[ochochicas]

I have a question. Jessicas chicks are a month old and today I found an egg that I believe is hers. She is definitely still caring for her babies. But it is too large to belong to the phoenix and it is shaped like jessicas eggs. Isn't it unusual for her to begin laying again while she is caring for her chicks? Maybe she wont go back to regular laying yet?

One of my broody hens abandoned her chicks at exactly 5 weeks and laid an egg the next day, so it is possible that Jessica laid an egg.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I consider them 'pullet eggs' for the first month or two when they are laying on an irregular schedule, varying sizes and double yolks or weird shapes.... basically they are 'working out the kinks' so to speak in their reproduction system. Once the level out and start producing on a regular schedule and a consistent size I don't worry so much about it.

Since the first month or two is more likely to produce oddities and double yolks it is more risky to set those eggs, though they certainly may hatch if a rooster is around (I have never hatched a double yolk, so can't state an absolute about that). Since I like to provide the highest likelihood of success for my broodies I just avoid any of the really young hen's eggs, there is no reason for me to let a hen set on an 'iffy' pullet egg if I have eggs from mature hens to use.... it is just a matter of preference and willingness to take risks.

@aatx

x2 on Fisherlady and the others....the reason for waiting until they pass the first couple of months is to not place eggs that are very small, odd shaped, thin shelled, or double yoked. Double yoked eggs very rarely hatch as 2 chicks simply don't have enough room to grow in one shell.

I've read one reason some breeders wait until the hen is a bit older, like a year, is to be sure that she has all the qualities they wish to breed forward, for example, consistent egg color if she is a specialty color, volume of eggs, and other factors that have to be assessed over time.

Lady of McCamley

 

[vpatt]

Jessica and her two babies have done so well in this cold weather....but this morning we had 5" to 6" of snow. They were not thrilled to navigate the fifteen feet away from the broody box to get under the porch. I had to carry one of them. This evening it was the same, but I wish id had my camera. One chick tried to ride on mama's back to get back to the nest. She couldn't hold one for long and I ended up helping both chicks. I can't blame them, that scary white stuff was over their heads!

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Jessica and her two babies have done so well in this cold weather....but this morning we had 5" to 6" of snow. They were not thrilled to navigate the fifteen feet away from the broody box to get under the porch. I had to carry one of them. This evening it was the same, but I wish id had my camera. One chick tried to ride on mama's back to get back to the nest. She couldn't hold one for long and I ended up helping both chicks. I can't blame them, that scary white stuff was over their heads!

LOL...my birds are not thrilled with snow either...big or small. We don't get much of it here, so they don't have to get used to it....but it does offer some comical relief when it does snow.

 

[aatx]

Well, now I have two broodies with eggs, both Silkies. Here is how I invision things going (and, yes, I am fully expecting things to happen and make me adjust along the way.)

Dahlia has six eggs under her. I swapped them out for the golf balls on Friday, Feb. 13. I actually gave her 5 eggs, but she laid her own (hopefully the next morning). I didn't realize it until I made her get off the nest on Sunday, but I am hoping she added it Saturday and not Sunday. Every time she has gone broody, she has laid an egg a few days into it, so I should have expected this to happen. I will attempt to candle on Feb. 23

Lily was also hinting at broodiness. I messed with her some in the coop, removing her from the nest box multiple times, manually moving her to the roost bar at night, etc., but it became obvious that she was really broody. So, I brought her inside as well and gave her golf balls. Last night, Feb. 17, I decided she had been on the golf balls long enough to prove she would sit, so I picked out my 4 best eggs from the past 3 days to give to her. Hers will get candled on Feb. 27.

Hopefully it won't be too bad with there being 4 days between them. They are both in the same room inside the house, but are in opposite corners, about 10' apart. I have a sheet of that thick foam insulation board that I will position in the middle between them after I do the day 17 candling with Dahlia. I also run an air purifier in there all the time (the type with just a fan with carbon filters). Hopefully these two things will keep Lily from abandoning her eggs when she hears Dahlia's hatch. Once all of Dahlia's have hatched and they can be disturbed a bit, I will be able to move them into some temporary quarters in another room until Lily's eggs hatch. After they have had a chance to bond fully for a day or so, I can move Dahlia back into the room with Lily, but still keep them in their own area.

If the weather seems to be cooperating, they'll move outside into our first coop after about 1-2 weeks. I'll keep them in the coop only for a few days to get settled (it's 4'x8' and there would be a max of 2 bantam hens and 10 chicks), and then I'll add the exercise pen onto it and let them have some outside time. The outside area we create using the exercise pen will share a side with the current flock's run. Hopefully this will start the integration with them being able to see, smell, and hear each other, but keep them protected as well. Then we'll just go from there as for when to move them in with the current flock based on how everything goes.

So, that's my plan anyway. Dahlia seems very committed, she won't get off the nest to eat/drink/poop as far as I can tell. On Sunday I made her get off and as long as I was stroking her back, she would eat. She was not interested in the water, so I had to just keep dribbling some along the side of her beak with a syringe. She took in a bit. She did not poop. Nothing on Monday. Yesterday I decided she had to eat/drink/and poop for me. With enough aggrivation and multiple water dish attempts, she finally ate and drank a good amount of water. She then laid TWO boody poops. Gag! The stench was awful! I don't know if I'll ever get used to that odor. Thankfully I had sat her down on paper towels so it was an easy and quick cleanup. I think I'll intervene like that every couple of days if needed.

I'll have to see how it goes with Lily and if I have to do the same or if she'll take care of herself.