One of our broodies has adopted... another one of our broodies.

[Justin0271]

Of our six girls, two of them are broody. But now they're both brooding in the same nest and one of them consistently sits on top of the other and spreads her wings to cover the bottom hen like she's a chick. What on earth do I do?

 

[MykaMom]

Take a picture, that sounds adorable!

 

[EmmaRainboe]

Take a picture, that sounds adorable!

I agree!

 

[MykaMom]

I agree!

I've never had a truly broody hen. I'd love to see these two playing momma!

 

[Shadrach]

Of our six girls, two of them are broody. But now they're both brooding in the same nest and one of them consistently sits on top of the other and spreads her wings to cover the bottom hen like she's a chick. What on earth do I do?

Do they have fertile eggs?
Do you want either to sit and hatch?
Double, even triple sits are not that uncommon. If you are happy to have them hatch chicks then leave them to it.

 

[AllenK RGV]

I will offer one caveat to @Shadrach excellent advice. If the eggs are fertile and you want them to hatch out. My experience is by day 18 you remove any extra broodies to prevent them from fighting over and killing the chicks once hatch out occurs. I have had that situation way too many times by not marking the calendar.
If the eggs are not fertile they are just wasting their time and limited resources. I would choose to break them in broody prison. @aart is an excellent resource there. I imagine I am pretty decent at broody breaking as well but all I know I learned from that user. Broodzilla(requires elbow length gloves) and a silkie just got broken this week.

 

[Justin0271]

Do they have fertile eggs?
Do you want either to sit and hatch?
Double, even triple sits are not that uncommon. If you are happy to have them hatch chicks then leave them to it.

We don't have fertile eggs, We're not zoned for more than 6 chickens, and definitely not zoned for a rooster (although that hasn't stopped our neighbours). Thankfully, just locking them out of the coop during the day for 7-8 hours for a few weeks seemed to do the trick.