Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[echip]

I forgot to include Lucky's close-up. Robust and still peeping.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Here she is finally made it out this morning.

 

[bobbieschicks]

They are all so adorable!

I forgot to include Lucky's close-up. Robust and still peeping.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Right on one of my facebook chicken groups some one posted this and i found it so funny! its their orpington brooding on their fully grown silkie!

That's hilarious.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I forgot to include Lucky's close-up. Robust and still peeping.

I am still amazed at the story of these 2, and about Miss Lydia she probably just rubbed her comb against something hard when she was getting up this morning and turned it a little pink.

 

[bobbieschicks]

I am so wiped!

I spent almost all day cleaning the coop - stripping it, power washing, painting some things that needed paint, spraying Oxine with a fogger, dusting with poultry dust and generally doing a good spring cleaning. My two helpers, 11 yo son & 9 yo daughter, decided two hours were all they could muster before returning to the safety of their rooms - so I was stuck finishing their jobs and doing my jobs. Not too pleased about that.

At least it's clean now. In their defense, it was pretty hot & humid here today and I wanted to give up after a couple of hours too - I just had no one to pass the job off on. LOL.

While I had all the chickens locked out of the secured run - Sunny my 19 week old WL/EE mix kept pacing around the gate. She got up into the windows on the outside several times and acted really aggressive about getting back into the coop. She slipped past me when I was putting stuff back inside so I let her in. She rushed into the nest boxes without any straw yet - and laid her 1st egg right there in an empty box! I was so happy for her and she even let me pet her. She got out of the box and squatted on the floor for awhile then got back into another nest box for awhile. It was so cute. I wonder if she will go broody soon? JK!

Here's her beautiful green egg

 

[moomoodiddy]

i think i read somewhere about roosters needing to be 3 months .. idk...silkies are the best for broodiness. usually if one chicken has babya all the rest will want some. my silkies allow me to pick them up and thier babies. what i do with my broody silkies is keep them with the rest until they hatch and then put them in a seperate cage

 

[bobbieschicks]

Went out to lock everyone up for the night and Topsy has her babies up in the nestbox with her. Can they really be four weeks old already! They are so tiny still. Smokey is still in the corner on the floor in the back of the coop. Don't know which I like better. Smokey playing it safe or Topsy being brave. I wonder how those babies got up in the nestbox. It's pretty high up off the floor. Guess I better get busy remaking my nestbox area. With all the broody activity I decided to make 6 rollout boxes to replace my 3 box design. I'll lower the first level so it's just 6 inches off the floor and the second level will be about 18" off the floor. That way it may discourage broodies (right) and keep the eggs from eating squished/broken.

 

[bobbieschicks]

i think i read somewhere about roosters needing to be 3 months .. idk...silkies are the best for broodiness. usually if one chicken has babya all the rest will want some. my silkies allow me to pick them up and thier babies. what i do with my broody silkies is keep them with the rest until they hatch and then put them in a seperate cage

I just had my two broodies hatch out six silkies. They are doing a great job of integrating them into the larger flock. I love those silkies!

 

[LilyD]

We officially have babies!! Mama Brahma has hatched out two of six eggs so far. Two more are pipped under her and making little peeping sounds and the other two hopefully will hatch as well. Her babies are Black Copper Marans and look like little penguins. So cute.