Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[sssharon]

So is that how you tell when they get a few weeks on them. If they have a comb. That must not be the same with all chickens. I have hens that have a comb. I have three chicks and they are 3 and a half months and one was making funny yesterday and I'm hoping it is not going to be a rooster. It is way bigger then the other two but they are all different breeds. I can't have roosters but at least my daughter said she would take her him so that won't be so bad. He is a little bit bad also so I have the bad feeling. It will be awful to separate those birds, they go every together. If they get to far apart they make noises calling for the other bird. It's real cute. I'm giving it a couple of days to see if maybe it was just making funny noises. It didn't do it as much today.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Thank you, yes the third of the trio is a rooster.    Today I realized the girls were not sharing the nest as sweetly as I thought and two times an egg got tossed out onto the floor... Hope they will be okay, it wasn't the softest landing.   I only had one nest box in there... what was I thinking?   So I put the broody in a neighboring cage and put a new nest box in for Anna so now no one will be sitting on her eggs as she lays them.  I just want to collect six or so before I incubate them.   There were two more eggs today than there were last night, I don't know how that is possible since one hen is broody,  maybe I missed one last night!?

 I'll see if I can find a cool spot for the eggs... maybe I'll stick my thermometer in my bathroom drawer and see what it says... I think that is our coolest room : )

Thanks again and btw, we are homeschoolers too!!

Congrats on the broody and homeschooling! Last year was our first public school year for my two nonspecial needs kids (5th and 7th grades). My sped guy has been at public school since preK. It was hard not being their teacher, and even harder to not see them all day long. It will be easier on them this year since they got used to schedules and test taking.

FYI, sometimes the broody will kick out duds or eat duds, so it might not have been a tussle that sent the eggs over the edge. You might want to write a big circle or something on the eggs you want to have hatched so you can tell if she's still laying or not. I've had girls "go broody" who were still laying because they take some time to gather a clutch. But eventually they stopped laying and started heating things up.

Oh I've also had broodies leave their nest and get eggs from others nests to bring back. They tuck them under their wings and jump up into the nest box.

 

[bobbieschicks]

So is that how you tell when they get a few weeks on them. If they have a comb. That must not be the same with all chickens. I have hens that have a comb. I have three chicks and they are 3 and a half months and one was making funny yesterday and I'm hoping it is not going to be a rooster. It is way bigger then the other two but they are all different breeds. I can't have roosters but at least my daughter said she would take her him so that won't be so bad. He is a little bit bad also so I have the bad feeling. It will be awful to separate those  birds, they go every together. If they get to far apart they make noises calling for the other bird. It's real cute. I'm giving it a couple of days to see if maybe it was just making funny noises. It didn't do it as much today.

Most of my roosters have had bigger combs that turned red earlier then their hatchmates who turned out to be pullets. Usually by eight weeks old a cockerel will try to crow, but not always. My first chickens were a group of five White Leghorn chicks. Four looked alike and one was different by eight weeks old. The four turned out to be roosters, but only two ever crowed. Until the day they were given to a friend and that day every one of those roosters crowed.

Here's some old pics from that first clutch. The large red comb ones are the roosters.

 

[darkbluespace]

Congrats on the broody and homeschooling! Last year was our first public school year for my two nonspecial needs kids (5th and 7th grades). My sped guy has been at public school since preK. It was hard not being their teacher, and even harder to not see them all day long. It will be easier on them this year since they got used to schedules and test taking.

FYI, sometimes the broody will kick out duds or eat duds, so it might not have been a tussle that sent the eggs over the edge. You might want to write a big circle or something on the eggs you want to have hatched so you can tell if she's still laying or not. I've had girls "go broody" who were still laying because they take some time to gather a clutch. But eventually they stopped laying and started heating things up.

Oh I've also had broodies leave their nest and get eggs from others nests to bring back. They tuck them under their wings and jump up into the nest box.

Well, the two eggs that were booted were 2 of the 3 that looked really good last night so I hope they didn't get too hard a bump.

Carrying eggs under their wings... just wild! I kind of know how they feel though... crazed with chick fever!

 

[ochochicas]

Today I let the broody hens out in the yard for a while with their 10-day-old chicks.

The first hen has 3 chicks. After eating and scratching for a while, she went under the tree and took a 30 minute dust bath.


She was having so much fun in the dirt, but finally came out to take a look around for predators.


The second broody has six chicks.
She took a dust bath under a different tree, but not as long as the other hen's bath.

 

[Sylviaanne]

Did you say one ducky was under your SF? How cute! Wonder how the ducky got from under the duck to under the chicken. congrats on the new ducky.

Yes. The red milk crate has big hand holes and the baby probably got on mom's back and fell through one of them. The blue milk crate has big holes in it and the baby probably heard the hen moving around and just went in and under her. Mama duck has 4 babies out of 9 eggs and the last egg we took in the house. I picked it up and about 1/4 the shell was missing on the side it was laying on. I candled it and there was a live baby in the egg. I thought it looked/acted like it was weak so I pulled some of the membrane loose and it started to bleed. I wrapped it in a warm, wet paper towel and put it under a lamp. It is hatched now but acts a little odd, like it can't walk right or hasn't got it's balance properly yet. I wanted to put it under mama but mama either isn't a good mama or needs more experience. This is her first time at being broody. She doesn't walk slowly enough for the babies to keep up with her and I am afraid that whatever speed the other 4 have, this little one would not be able to keep up. At least mama duck tends to leave the babies near the other ducks, although I do not know if they would try to protect them or not if the need arose.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Today I let the broody hens out in the yard for a while with their 10-day-old chicks. The first hen has 3 chicks. After eating and scratching for a while, she went under the tree and took a 30 minute dust bath. She was having so much fun in the dirt, but finally came out to take a look around for predators. The second broody has six chicks. She took a dust bath under a different tree, but not as long as the other hen's bath.

Awh! Love it!

 

[suyoder]

Just thought I would pop in here with my new development...This is Penny - my hatchery Dutch bantam - and she started sitting on eggs Wednesday! There are six eggs... she laid one more after I took the picture.

Is there ANYTHING I need to know about this??? This is the absolutely first time I've had a hen go broody... actually, chickens are very new to me. So if there's anything special I should know, please say!! She does get off the nest to eat and drink... can I leave her with the rooster and other hen? So far the other hen hasn't bothered her at all... and the rooster doesn't seem to mind either. Can I just let her raise them with the "family"?

 

[bobbieschicks]

Just thought I would pop in here with my new development...This is Penny - my hatchery Dutch bantam - and she started sitting on eggs Wednesday! There are six eggs... she laid one more after I took the picture. Is there ANYTHING I need to know about this??? This is the absolutely first time I've had a hen go broody... actually, chickens are very new to me. So if there's anything special I should know, please say!! She does get off the nest to eat and drink... can I leave her with the rooster and other hen? So far the other hen hasn't bothered her at all... and the rooster doesn't seem to mind either. Can I just let her raise them with the "family"?

What a beauty!

 

[KuroKitsune]

one chick has hatched under my broody barred cochin hen! looks like it'll be a yellow fuzzbutt with a little bit of darker color on its face...chick 2 has not appeared yet and i only found chick one cuase i was checking under the hen for egg that were the ones i gave her as she steals the eggs from the other nest box. looked at the chick put him/her back and will wait for chick 2 to come out....will take pics to share either tonight if chick 2 show up by then or tomorrow morning if he/she hasn't