I am so glad to have this thread, since this is my first attempt with a broody hen. My FBCM was acting strange the last days of April. She laid an egg on May 1 in the morning, and that same evening she was in one of the nesting boxes. So I took her egg and two other FBCM eggs from that day that were still on the counter, and put them under her, thinking that if she stayed on them overnight I would know that she was broody, and if she moved to the roost for the night, then I would just retrieve them. Well, she stayed on them overnight, and the next morning would not get out of the box despite harrassment by the other layers. Her being there stressed the other hens since I only have 3 nesting boxes, rather than them stressing her.
I free range my layers, and they are so good about laying in the nesting boxes, even though there are 13 layers who share 3 boxes. However, after she began her set, they began laying outside somewhere, because I only got 4 eggs yesterday, when I normally get 10-12 per day. Today it is raining, so I am keeping them up all day, and I have already gotten 7 eggs.
Because they were so stressed, and because of the nesting boxes being off the ground, I opted to try to move her. Night before last, we took her and her eggs(the number of which had increased by two) to a private area. She seemed to settle onto the eggs, but when we got back to her the next morning, she had moved and the eggs were cold. She obviously did not like the place in the new location that we had chosen for her. The unfortunately thing was that there were good blood webs and embryos inside the original 3 eggs that I put under her.
So, I put more eggs under her, and she stayed there all day yesterday, last night, and this morning. This morning I picked her up, and carried her out of the pen and sat her down, and finally coaxed her to get up and move around with some scratch feed. She ate, drank, and did the big broody poop. Boy, was she stiff! Her toes were even curled under, but she got everything stretched. As soon as she was done, she began looking for her nest. So I took her back to her pen, and she found her eggs, and oh so carefully sat back down on them after getting them situated. Her total time out was approximately 15 minutes.
I know that some folks leave them alone, but whether she feels better or not, my knowing that she has had a bit of food, water, and stretch makes ME feel better. So we are only on day 2 which put a hatch date of 5/25 to 5/26.
I am going to be interested to see(if they hatch) what the cross between the FBCM and my lavender Orpington rooster looks like. Should be fluffy things.....even if they are mutts.
