Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[amgflange]

Hi, I am just a newbie crazy chook lady and have a few questions!
I convinced my husband that I needed some chickens at the start of the year, he was happy to agree to 3. Came home from the breeders with 5. Oooops! Recently i was able to convince him I needed a few more to add to our wee flock so we could have pretty colored eggs, came home again with 5! Yes, he now does think that I cannot correctly count when it comes to chooks! And now this is where I have no idea on what to do.... One of our older girls gas gone broody, I am super excited to let her sit on eggs I will be purchasing online in the next few days. But, the new lot if girls have been quarantined in a small patch of garden for the last week and I was planning on introducing them in another 10 days to go and live free range on the farm and share the main coop. Do I wait until all the ladies have accepted each other, and are all friends before I pay a hefty sum for postage in fertile eggs in case all the drama causes miss newly broody to up and decided not to stay with her eggs?

 

[sharol]

Hi, I am just a newbie crazy chook lady and have a few questions!
I convinced my husband that I needed some chickens at the start of the year, he was happy to agree to 3. Came home from the breeders with 5. Oooops! Recently i was able to convince him I needed a few more to add to our wee flock so we could have pretty colored eggs, came home again with 5! Yes, he now does think that I cannot correctly count when it comes to chooks! And now this is where I have no idea on what to do.... One of our older girls gas gone broody, I am super excited to let her sit on eggs I will be purchasing online in the next few days. But, the new lot if girls have been quarantined in a small patch of garden for the last week and I was planning on introducing them in another 10 days to go and live free range on the farm and share the main coop. Do I wait until all the ladies have accepted each other, and are all friends before I pay a hefty sum for postage in fertile eggs in case all the drama causes miss newly broody to up and decided not to stay with her eggs?

 

[chrispbrown27]

Recently had a white rock hen go broody.....and she is hard core broody. I can pick her up move her aside and she will lay there muttering what I assume are bad chicken words at me while I count the eggs or do whatever and when I am done she mutters a few more words, arranges the eggs and sits right back down. Not having any place else to move her to, I left her in the coop with the other birds (a mixed flock of ducks and chickens) and so far no issues. She is currently on 5 ducks eggs and 1 chicken egg. Originally she sat on 8 eggs but two of them got cracked at some point so I tossed them out and two got pushed out somehow and ended up in the frying pan. (quite a disturbing sight when you are looking for a good breakfast) She has since replaced the lost eggs and is again sitting on 6 eggs. Two of them are obviously from the original sitting because the development is well beyond the others. I did manage to mark the day she started sitting on the originals so around two week from now we should be looking for some new ducklings to make an appearance.....not by any means the ideal time of year to be hatching, but we shall see how it goes!
Chris

 

[BoereMeisie]

Here is my Rhode Island Red with a chick peeking out... She is still sitting on two eggs and I will leave her be for a while as the ones that hatched are Silkie eggs (There is a yellow one and a light brownish-buffish one... The parents are all white Silkies though...). She is still sitting on one Rhode Island Red egg (her own) and one Silkie egg. I've heard that the RIR egg may take longer to hatch due to its size so I will give her a little while. The babies are eating and drinking when I sprinkle chick starter around mama hen so they'll be fine to wait a bit...



I will post more pics tomorrow or Friday... I don't want to bother them too much yet

 

[Susiederkins]

good luck...she's prittty

 

[pmcatnip]

Quote:
My gold laced wyandotte went broody and hatched chicks at 6 months old. She's doing an excellent job brooding 7 babies that are about 3-4 weeks old now. So I think it's fine if yours stays on the nest.

Edit: Oh yeah and my welsummer that was broody (the one I found setting on a clutch in the compost pile, underneath the tarp) is the same age. She was doing a grand old job on her own but my disturbance to shovel compost snapped her out of it. She and the GLW would both have been about 5 months when they started setting.

 

[citychicken0981]

I just had my BO go Broody, I waited two weeks to make sure she was "all in". Well... she is, just put three French black cooper marans and three silver penciled rocks. I'm pretty excited! I plan on vaccinating a few days after they hatch, I need to do more research on that. I got the eggs from a farm right down the street. I really was surprised to see some beautiful show quality birds. Definitely worth checking out www.sunnysideupmicrofarm.com

 

[BoereMeisie]

Here is a quick pic of Molly, my RIR, with her two Silkie babies "Punky" and "Buffy" (temporary names... Might stick to them) They have their own coop and run for now, as the silkie babies are sooo tiny and my RIR rooster is huge and mean... Had to take the pics from outside the coop, as Molly is VERY protective over her little balls of cute

Had to toss the other two eggs she was sitting on. The 3rd Silkie egg had a dead embryo inside, and the RIR egg never developed (stinky ticking timebomb...)

 

[MzPlacedHippie]

She is so lovely! What a good momma!

 

[Johnn]

Loving everyones pics!