I left both girls in their boxes tonight.. both flat as pancakes! I will put dummy eggs in tomorrow. I couldn’t get to my cabinet they’re in without disturbing roosting girls. Both of those Silks laid me eggs today.
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Since I definately don’t want her to stop being broody, should I just let her stay in the nest box cluster? I actually have 2 girls broody at the same time it seems so I could let one or both stay in the boxes they chose. I guess I'm a bit unsure of the whole moving them thing.. It seems good in theory, but whenever I move almost all of my girls on the roosts at bedtime it is almost a sure thing they're gonna just move themselves right back. I definitely wouldn't want the mama to up and leave her eggs for her "prime" nesting place. I hope that makes sense.I would move the broody to where you want her to lay and give her dummy eggs. Give her 24 hours to make sure she will sit, as moving them sometimes stresses them and it breaks their broodiness. Once she sits on her dummy eggs and builds up her nest around her, and you know she is content sitting there, slip her the eggs you wanna hatch, preferably at night.
This is what I did today.I would move the broody to where you want her to lay and give her dummy eggs. Give her 24 hours to make sure she will sit, as moving them sometimes stresses them and it breaks their broodiness. Once she sits on her dummy eggs and builds up her nest around her, and you know she is content sitting there, slip her the eggs you wanna hatch, preferably at night.
This is what I did today.
I put Silkie #1 (Snowball) in the brooder tonight once it got dark. I placed her in the nest on top of fake eggs, it has water and food on the opposite side of nest. She fussed quite a bit and after about an hour, I peeked in on her. She was sleeping but not in the nest, but over by the food and water. I hope she'll figure it out in the morning. All day today she had been in a nest box sitting happily on her (mostly) fake eggs. However, the other hens would cause a fuss (usually by sitting in her nest) and she would end up sitting in a new box with new eggs. Very much seeing the need for her to be in a place where she is separate. I just hopes she comes around to my thinking sooner rather than later.
I continued to let Silkie#2 (Maple) stay in her nest box on the floor. But, I put a temporary wire "fence" around her so that all of my nosey other girls would leave her and her fake eggs be. We ended up putting a small portal in it though, so she could get out and get food and dust bathe. When she couldn't get out, she freaked out a bit (ok, a lot!) even though she had food and water close by.
I'm hoping both will continue to show their broody colors tomorrow and be on their way to hatching eggs in a few days. I did however stop by our local TS and picked up an incubator as an insurance policy. I didn't want to come this far and have a hiccup and end up loosing all eggs due to it. I can post pics tomorrow of their setup, I forgot to get pictures of the final setups before nightfall.