Silkies laying & broodyness?

[chickencoop31320]

First things first:
My silkies were hatched November 12, 2008. They started laying about 5 May give or take a day. When I got the first few eggs I checked them for the "bullseye" and 3 of 4 had it. Then I asked for some advice in the BYC chat room to see if I should/could try incubating the eggs since I have 3 roos and 12 hens in the pen. I was told "sure, shy not and give it a try". So taking the advice from the chatters and evidence of fertility in to my reasoning I decided to go ahead and do a test hatch. I started 42 eggs in my bator last Saturday morning. I candled them last night and found 36 of the 42 had really good veining. I was ever so pleased!
My question would be: is that a good fertility rate?
Secondly,
I have a silkie female who is refusing to leave a nest box. She acts as if she is broody. Is this normal? I mean... they only started laying a few weeks ago and she already won't leave the golf balls in the box! If she is, is this too soon for her? I am a bit worried she is too young and not filled out yet too.

 

[basicliving]

Hi Chickencoop31320 - For your incubating question, I suggest posting it in the Incubating & Hatching Eggs section. There will absolutely be people there that can answer your question! There is an amazing amount of very knowledgeable people there with oodles of experience with incubating eggs and hatch rates that hang out there.

I don't have any Silkies, but if I've only learned one thing about that breed from this forum, it would be that Silkies are probably the broodiest breed on the planet! As for the age of yours going broody, I had two Phoenix pullets go broody within a couple of weeks of each other when they were about 10 months old. When they went broody, they sat like rocks. I decided to just go ahead and let them hatch out chicks - and 6 weeks after they hatched those, they went broody again. I suspect your little Silkie is going to be a little Brood Mistress for you as well! And I don't think it's necessarily bad for them to go broody at a young age.

 

[chickencoop31320]

basicliving, thanks for commenting.
I decided to let her have a few eggs and see what happens from there.
You're right about posting the fertility question in the other section.