One of my broodies got up today, need advice

[affacat]

She was in the corner and we thought she had about eight eggs. She's been standing and walking around all day and not gone back to them.. this gave me the opportunity to see her nest and it has around 28 eggs in it. Which is insane.

What should we do, we don't want to leave them overnight obviously. We already have an incubator that's mostly full but we do have a few spots. There are also a few maybes in our incubator that may not be viable.

We're debating buying a new incubator on the spot. Any advice would be welcome

 

[Mallards and Quail]

She was in the corner and we thought she had about eight eggs. She's been standing and walking around all day and not gone back to them.. this gave me the opportunity to see her nest and it has around 28 eggs in it. Which is insane.

What should we do, we don't want to leave them overnight obviously. We already have an incubator that's mostly full but we do have a few spots. There are also a few maybes in our incubator that may not be viable.

We're debating buying a new incubator on the spot. Any advice would be welcome

If you don't see her on the nest by tomorrow morning or at least tomorrow at noon I think probably it may be best to incubate them as she may have rejected them. I have had this happen with some quail I had in the past I incubated them and they hatched just fine.

 

[affacat]

If you don't see her on the nest by tomorrow morning or at least tomorrow at noon I think probably it may be best to incubate them as she may have rejected them. I have had this happen with some quail I had in the past I incubated them and they hatched just fine.

We bought a second incubator yesterday. We took around 10 eggs to it, then she got back on them... And then abandoned them again an hour later.

We ended up filling up the incubator....

And now she's sitting on an empty nest. I'm not going to worry about it too much, hopefully we didn't lose too many to the eggs being ignored for the majority of a day.


Our other mamma is still being good with her eggs. I didnt want to raise 25-30 chicks ourselves this year... Maybe we can trick the mamma into raising 40-50 by herself lol

 

[Mallards and Quail]

We bought a second incubator yesterday. We took around 10 eggs to it, then she got back on them... And then abandoned them again an hour later.

We ended up filling up the incubator....

And now she's sitting on an empty nest. I'm not going to worry about it too much, hopefully we didn't lose too many to the eggs being ignored for the majority of a day.


Our other mamma is still being good with her eggs. I didnt want to raise 25-30 chicks ourselves this year... Maybe we can trick the mamma into raising 40-50 by herself lol

Lol good luck with that one

 

[R2elk]

We bought a second incubator yesterday. We took around 10 eggs to it, then she got back on them... And then abandoned them again an hour later.

We ended up filling up the incubator....

And now she's sitting on an empty nest. I'm not going to worry about it too much, hopefully we didn't lose too many to the eggs being ignored for the majority of a day.


Our other mamma is still being good with her eggs. I didnt want to raise 25-30 chicks ourselves this year... Maybe we can trick the mamma into raising 40-50 by herself lol

Don't try to trick her.

I put the hen in with the poults and watch. If she wants them, she will start talking to them and gathering them together.

If she starts pecking at them, remove her immediately.

Last year my adopting hen raised 27 poults of various ages at the same time. 40 to 50 is too many for one hen to keep warm at the same time.

 

[Prince and Pavo]

Hello! Is this her first time going broody? She may just be lacking in experience and isn’t sure what to do. On the other hand, it could be that she sensed that they were no longer viable and abandoned them for that reason. 28 eggs is a lot, and it could be that since she was trying to incubate so many, some couldn’t fit under her, and one by one, they just stopped developing. Also, is the nesting site in a suitable spot, as well as position? Is it in a secluded, hidden, relatively small and dark area? If not, that could have caused her to stop being broody. Keep watching her to see if she tries to set again.

By the way, although watching a hen raise 40 to 50 poults would be super cute and amusing, I don’t know if it would be the best idea because, like @R2elk said, it would be very difficult or even impossible for her to keep them all warm at one time.

 

[affacat]

Hello! Is this her first time going broody? She may just be lacking in experience and isn’t sure what to do. On the other hand, it could be that she sensed that they were no longer viable and abandoned them for that reason. 28 eggs is a lot, and it could be that since she was trying to incubate so many, some couldn’t fit under her, and one by one, they just stopped developing. Also, is the nesting site in a suitable spot, as well as position? Is it in a secluded, hidden, relatively small and dark area? If not, that could have caused her to stop being broody. Keep watching her to see if she tries to set again.

By the way, although watching a hen raise 40 to 50 poults would be super cute and amusing, I don’t know if it would be the best idea because, like @R2elk said, it would be very difficult or even impossible for her to keep them all warm at one time.

Oh I was mostly joking about having her raise all those.

Our attempt this year was not to self raise any chicks, and to let the broody hens and Jenny's raise them all for us. Unfortunately, we had one of each give up so now we're going to be raising a bunch.

Thankfully we do seem to have one good Mama of each kind. There should be some hatches any day now.

We actually have a whole bunch of broody chickens right now but I'm not sure they've been pretty long enough to give them eggs that will hatch in a week or so, because I've heard you really kind of want to match their cycle.