Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[Miss Lydia]

Oh those English orps are awesone, LF or bantam? My Lavender Orps LF are such bullies, they wait every eve for my bantams to come in to roost and they start picking on them. Makes me want to put them into the small coop but then thats where i was planning to try out my broodys this spring right before hatch day to give mama and chicks some alone time. We'll see. I have 3 LF birds [hens] and my Brahma hen is so laid back never picks on anyone but these 2 girls

 

[artsyrobin]

i want some of those orps!!!

 

[fuzziecreatures]

We had one of our mixed bantams, Cinnamon, setting on the nest with no eggs for 4 weeks. We kept taking them away from her and kicking her out of the nest. We were planning letting broodies (all 4 of our bantams insisted on it last summer and fall) sit on the eggs this month. It is now February, but she's been sitting for 4 weeks and feeling boney. I believe she is finally giving up as she has been out foraging with the rest of the chickens on Sunday and today. She is still sleeping in the nest box however.
Her sister, Nutmeg was deciding which box would be best to lay in today. When anyone else came near her, she got all puffy and ignored the roos advances. Maybe she will want to set on the eggs now...

 

[Niss]

Those pics are great Robin!
I'm so glad it wasn't all quiet on the broody front! This is the only part of byc I use on a regular basis...I would have had to find another thread to worm my way into...How would I get my fix without all of your broodies (and cameras) working overtime for the common good???

 

[stonykill]

I was just thinking why haven't I heard from anyone on the broody thread and there it is, very slow right now I guess. I have one in the nest box tonight but think she is just to sleep. [I didn't have the heart to make her get out.. ]

it is odd. I was thinking the same thing today. Then reallized I haven't gotten ANY notifiactions from BYC since the last rash of "improvements". Change is not always good...

not a broody thing, but a story about my best broody "mama" . Last night at 12:10 am I was awoken by the Sumatra spruce out front (30 feet from our bedroom) SCREAMING! So I jump out of bed, grab my glasses and my the closest shotgun and go outside. As soon as I exit the front door, flashlight and gun in hand, they go quiet. The trap is empty, but still baited, and all looks good at the spruce tree and the coops. I go back to bed. Now onto "mama". She always greets me right away in the am to get some grub. No mama. I look in the shed where she has been laying. No mama. Hours pass, no mama. Now I'm worried. She is always with head roo Sammy. I see Sammy several times with 6 black Sumatra's , but no blue mama. (she is his only blue in his harem). Noon time, here comes mama with a younger blue roo, and his hens. Good god she gave me a scare. We (ok I) had a little discussion about how worried I was about her. She looked at me as I spoke, but didn't seem to care. She returned to Sammy. Guess she had a morning fling

 

[perchie.girl]

For what its worth I noticed the lack of notifications and found this trouble shooting thread on that very subject.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...mail-subscription-notifications-unsubscribing

They are trying to fix it through our feedback. I wound up logging out then logging back in with a couple of tweaks and it looks like my notifications are coming in well.

deb

 

[Miss Lydia]

it is odd. I was thinking the same thing today. Then reallized I haven't gotten ANY notifiactions from BYC since the last rash of "improvements". Change is not always good...

not a broody thing, but a story about my best broody "mama" . Last night at 12:10 am I was awoken by the Sumatra spruce out front (30 feet from our bedroom) SCREAMING! So I jump out of bed, grab my glasses and my the closest shotgun and go outside. As soon as I exit the front door, flashlight and gun in hand, they go quiet. The trap is empty, but still baited, and all looks good at the spruce tree and the coops. I go back to bed. Now onto "mama". She always greets me right away in the am to get some grub. No mama. I look in the shed where she has been laying. No mama. Hours pass, no mama. Now I'm worried. She is always with head roo Sammy. I see Sammy several times with 6 black Sumatra's , but no blue mama. (she is his only blue in his harem). Noon time, here comes mama with a younger blue roo, and his hens. Good god she gave me a scare. We (ok I) had a little discussion about how worried I was about her. She looked at me as I spoke, but didn't seem to care. She returned to Sammy. Guess she had a morning fling

She was probably teaching him a few things stony

I'm glad she is OKay. they can really scare ya. One of my youngest hens was acting off the other day, and of course I over react but you just never know with these guys, I caught her when she went to roost and fed her some Nutri drench by mouth and put her to bed with a prayer, yesterday she seemed fine so I was relieved. Haven't lost anyone since we had to put our hen to sleep with ascities late summer and I don't want to have to do that again anytime soon. Won't be long before Broody season will be back up and running... and your right Niss this thread has kept me going all winter with others still having broodys and chicks. Thank Ya'll so much

 

[CluckyJay]

What are the chances that a production rhode island red will stay broody? Mine just sat on eggs and has this weird look in her eyes. She won't stop screeching when we go near the nest. She accepted two eggs I put under her. She nearly killed my dog, too, LOL.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

What are the chances that a production rhode island red will stay broody? Mine just sat on eggs and has this weird look in her eyes. She won't stop screeching when we go near the nest. She accepted two eggs I put under her. She nearly killed my dog, too, LOL.

I had a Red Sex Link successfully raise a brood of 3 late last summer. Best broody mama EVER. She fiercely mothered those chicks for a full 12 weeks!!!! (She moulted right after the eggs hatched. She really did look a fright but she was a GOOD mama!)

Good luck with yours and keep us posted!!!

 

[JohnandJacquelineW]

We've never hatched any eggs or had a hen go broody, but we've got one now, I'm reading this thread to decide what we need to do, but thought I'd post our situation and see if anyone has feedback:

Last Friday night, I went out to close in our chickens, and thought I heard a noise outside the coop. Walking around with the flashlight though, I couldn't see anything and the noise stopped, so I decided the noise must've come from one of the hens moving around inside.

The next morning, one of our young hens is outside the coop when we go out to let them out and feed them. She seems worried and concerned, but we assumed it was just because she'd had a rough night (it had rained pretty hard that night too...). So we were thankful that she'd made it through the night and figured that was the end of that story...

Later that afternoon, we went outside and noticed she wasn't with the flock. We walked all around the property and she was nowhere to be found. We were pretty confused by that, but hoped maybe she'd show up in the evening to roost... she didn't. In fact, she didn't re-appear until this morning (that was Saturday, this is Thursday... so we'd assumed she was gone for good even if she had started off broody somewhere in the woods something had probably gotten her - or so we thought) when she heard the others coming out of the coop and feeding. After a bit of an "Easter Egg Hunt" based on the area we'd seen her come from to get food, we did find her nest with 13 eggs in it and 2 that look like they'd been kicked out or accidentally fell out. She is very well hidden and we actually went back to look after she disappeared again today and even knowing where she was it was hard to see her until we were standing right above her.


We're a bit concerned about predators where she is at, also she's a little too close to a nearby road for comfort, so we're planning to move her. We'd also like to add some eggs, but are unsure if it is too late to do that? Obviously the eggs she's been sitting on this whole time would hatch sooner than anything we added, so that may cause problems. But what if we completely switched out her eggs? We're not all that excited about hatching out 13 BO chicks, but there is still something sentimental about her hatching some of her own eggs I guess.

If we switched out all of her eggs after she's been sitting for almost a week would she still hold out for the full 21 days? If we did some of her own eggs and some others would the gap in hatching times cause problems?

We're planning to move some branches and similar brush to what she's hiding in right now into the brooder so we can move her after dark tonight. That way we'll know her and the chicks are safe and we can make sure she has access to food/water. In the meantime, we're still trying to figure out what to do with the eggs...