Question about leaving eggs in hopes of hen broodiness

[LocoPollo]

How do people handle the eggs in the nest if you are hoping a hen will go broody? Do you leave 8 or so and just take out the oldest ones every day? If I collect all her eggs everyday she wont have any to go broody on. how do yall handle that?

 

[Shared Acres]

I tried it didn't work.

I have left between 2-4 golf balls in the nest. Two hasn't done a thing. But after a week of 4 in the nest, my hen has decided to go broody! So I changed out the golf balls for eggs to see if she'll hatch them!

 

[shelleyd2008]

I think it really depends on the hen. I have a standard cochin who went broody on only one egg. Of course, she had been laying for about a month. I normally leave the eggs in the nests for a week. I only incubate them anyway, and this way the hens can turn them daily for me! After a week, I collect all but the newest one (of course I mark them so I know which one is new!), pop 'em in the bator, and the next day it starts again. I have heard a lot of ppl say that the use golf balls. I haven't had to use anything like that. My hens, other than the cochin, usually have 4-6 eggs on the nest they decide to set!

 

[bheila]

Just something in their body decides to tell them it's time. I've had 2 Barred Rocks go broody. They did great. Except one had some anxiety issues once the babies were hatched and decided that she needed to start pulling out all of her feathers so I separated them. Now she's fine. I also had a Gold Laced Wyandotte go broody about 2 1/2 months ago. She was on her eggs for about 16 days and then decided she needed to move to another nest box. She was such a pain I couldn't keep her on her eggs so I just gave up on her. To this day like I said it's been 2 1/2 months she's still wanting to hatch some eggs. She'll snap out of it eventually. Believe me if we could make the hens broody so that I wouldn't have to incubate the eggs I would do it in a heartbeat.

 

[SGM]

The one time I tried I left old eggs in her nest and as she continued to lay I took only the fresh ones and stored them. When she stopped laying and sat on the eggs, then I went out one night with the fresh eggs and a flashlight. Took the old eggs from under her and put the good eggs back. She hatched all 7 of her eggs, and the 1 extra was from a Mille Fleur D'Uccle pair I had who'd just started laying. That one didn't hatch. Oh and this was a Gold Sebright hen that I had. That's the only experience I have with broody hens and it went well. She was fiesty too. LOL