Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[Lady of McCamley]

Waiting....any day now...I am so impatient Molly decided she wasn't going to be a mother today. She wouldn't sit on the 3 eggs so I put them back under Luna so they wouldn't get cold and die. I went out and checked on her all day she didn't return to the nest she was sleeping with the others on the roost. Hope they chicks make it...

The embryos are amazingly resilient...I've had a broody quit midway like that...picked up my faithful Silkie who was just thinking about thinking about brooding...plunked her down on the cool eggs...she took to them and I still got some healthy chicks. Not a fantastic hatch rate, but still decent enough.

Lady of McCamley

 

[kimmerjo]

Molly sat for 12 days . Luna took them happily. No chicks yet ...I might have my day calculated wrong..here is a pic of Luna taking a little mommy time

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

Hi! I think I have a broody hen! This would be my first, so I have a couple of questions:

My BCM hen has been sitting on the nest for about 24 hours. After a great deal of nudging and sqwawking and straight up growling, I managed to raise her up enough to see only 2 eggs. Is it too late to add more? How many can she handle?

Secondly, I wasn't expecting this, and I'm not entirely prepared. The nesting box she's sitting in is an not ideal location. I have a second, smaller coop that I use to raise younger birds. It's empty right now. I'd like to put her in there. When/how do I move her? I have newly hatched chicks I was planning to move to that coop in 4-5 weeks. I guess her chicks will be a week old at that point? Do I keep them all together? Should I move the week-olds indoors to the brooder?

Thanks!

 

[fisherlady]

Hi! I think I have a broody hen! This would be my first, so I have a couple of questions:

My BCM hen has been sitting on the nest for about 24 hours. After a great deal of nudging and sqwawking and straight up growling, I managed to raise her up enough to see only 2 eggs. Is it too late to add more? How many can she handle?

Secondly, I wasn't expecting this, and I'm not entirely prepared. The nesting box she's sitting in is an not ideal location. I have a second, smaller coop that I use to raise younger birds. It's empty right now. I'd like to put her in there. When/how do I move her? I have newly hatched chicks I was planning to move to that coop in 4-5 weeks. I guess her chicks will be a week old at that point? Do I keep them all together? Should I move the week-olds indoors to the brooder?

Thanks!

Is it too late? No... but staggering a hatch by adding eggs over the course of 2 or 3 days causes problems for the hen at hatch time. The earliest to hatch are ready to move around to eat and drink and mama still has to set on the slower eggs. My preference is to give all the eggs on the same day to avoid trouble on the other end...
My suggestion... pull the 2 she is on and replace them with golf balls or something similar, 1 day won't really matter and set those eggs aside to scramble at a later date and feed back to the broody.
Prepare the nest where you want her to do her setting and move her at dark into the new nest area. See if she settles down there and don't give her hatching eggs till she is settled where you want her to be.
While you are giving her a day or two to make sure she is settled in for the long haul you can gather 10 or 12 eggs you want her to set on. A large fowl hen can easily cover 10 or 12, some even up to 18, though I wouldn't do that many unless you know for sure you have room for everyone to be housed. Either slip the eggs under her in the evening or some hens don't care what time of day it is... they are just happy to have eggs. Make sure you mark them somehow before placing them if you want to keep track of them by candling. It is really important if you end up having her do her time somewhere that other hens can access her nest... they will lay eggs in her nest, then you have to remove them daily.
If you are going to let her sit and hatch the eggs my personal choice would be that you let her raise her chicks, don't take them away... I know it can be done, and some people do... it is just my preference to allow the chicks to be broody raised till the broody is done with them.
If you have to move the other chicks out in 5 weeks then consider options for where you have the broody do her thing or where you can move the other chicks to... do you have a corner of the coop you can section off with wire to allow some privacy? can you find an alternate temporary housing method within the coop's run? (such as a dog house or dog crate that can be placed in the run itself and fenced off for one of the groups?
The broody may really not like having the older chicks around and the risk of conflict and injury to someone is pretty high if they are forced to be in close proximity. If they have plenty of room to move around and avoid each other it is not so bad.

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

Thanks! That is really helpful information. I replaced her eggs with dummies, and cleaned out and rebedded the second coop for the move tonight. I hope it works! How likely do you think it is that her broodiness could be broken by the move?

I would definitely rather she raised the chicks. I've always wanted to hatch with a broody.

 

[fisherlady]

Thanks! That is really helpful information. I replaced her eggs with dummies, and cleaned out and rebedded the second coop for the move tonight. I hope it works! How likely do you think it is that her broodiness could be broken by the move?

I would definitely rather she raised the chicks. I've always wanted to hatch with a broody.

There is no way to tell if the move will break her... I've moved plenty of hens and did have 1 quit, but it depends on their personal temperament and how different the new location is for them and how strong the hormones are holding them at the time. Moving them at night usually allows them to rest quieter and feel more settled so as they begin to see their surroundings in the morning they are less freaked. It doesn't always work, but it is the best chance for success...I had one hen who paced and clucked trying to go back to her old nest, but after a while she went back to setting and stayed the course.

When we move hens (we don't move all of them, it depends on where they park themselves and how high on the pecking order they are).... we do it as a two person thing, one gently picks up the bird for the move, the second quickly grabs the top layer of bedding the hen was nested on (we happen to use hay in our nests, so it is easy to do) and her fake eggs, and gets them into our broody area so it smells familiar to them. If you are working by yourself I would grab a few handfuls of her bedding out from under her as she sets and use it to line the new nest, then after you move her to the new nest just grab more of the bedding from the old one and tuck it around her and place the golf balls under her. It will take her a few minutes to realize she doesn't have the golf balls, so you can get away with it.

Good luck with the move and have fun with her and her batch!

 

[myby]

Molly sat for 12 days . Luna took them happily. No chicks yet ...I might have my day calculated wrong..here is a pic of Luna taking a little mommy time

No picture:/

 

[kimmerjo]

It won't let me upload a picture..?

 

[Sydney Acres]

I have eight Red Dorkings, seven hens and one rooster. They are almost 2 years old. I have decided I would like to breed them, and would like to use broody hens for incubation and rearing. One of the hens is excellent quality, and two others are good quality. I had planned on brooding eggs from only one hen at a time, but I didn't start saving eggs soon enough and my best hen just went broody earlier than expected, and has been brooding for 2 days now. I only have four eggs from her, three that were saved specifically for incubation, and one that had been in the refrigerator for several day before I pulled it out. I also have 5 eggs from one of the good quality hens, two saved for incubation and three pulled out after a short time in the refridge.

I am thinking of putting all nine eggs under this broody to hatch out at the same time. However, I need to be able to tell which chicks came from which hen so that I can keep genetic records for my breeding program. The eggs are marked, and I can put leg bands or other identification on the chicks once they hatch. My problem is how to tell which chick came from which egg if they all hatch on the same day, and I'm not there at the exact time of hatch to check the egg mark and immediately put ID on the chick. If I were using an incubator I could use a pedigree cage, but are there any techniques for natural brooding?? I've heard that the colored Easter chicks (that are dyed pink or green or some other non-chick color) are created by injecting food coloring into the egg at a certain time of development, but I'm a bit concerned about introducing contamination into the egg with injections, plus I'm not even sure that really how they color the chicks. Is there anything else that can be done to differentiate between chicks hatched in the same clutch that are from different look-a-like hens?? I hate having such a great quality hen go through a brood for just 4 eggs, but even if I break her brood now she still won't be back to laying eggs for another 4-8 weeks, which puts those chicks later in the season, with no guarantee that there will be a broody available at the right time. Does anyone have any recommendations?

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

Moving my broody hen Magellan seemed to go well last night. She settled into her nest. But this morning she is frantically pacing the run. Should I give her another day to possibly settle down? It looks like she tried sitting on the nest. The dummie eggs were neatly gathered and it looks like she pulled out some breast feathers. I was sad to see her out of the coop this morning.