SO MANY BROODY! HELP! Chickens are winning...

[paigeioli]

I'm just on here venting. I have a Cochin and a Buff Orpington who have gone broody 3 times. The first two times I put them in chicken jail until they laid again. This third time I decided to indulge them with fertile eggs. Now three days in, and other hen has gone broody! She is sharing a box and stole some eggs that the Buff is sitting on.

Anyway, apparently hatching is a group effort. Needy chickens. Hopefully I'll have some babies and everyone will get along.

I'm tired of "breaking" the broodies. I'm not even sure what I'm going to do with all these babies. The chickens are winning... Unless, I decide to make them into stew.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I have a waiting list for my broody jail. Currently it contains 3 hens, I have one more that needs to go in there yet this week. I have had hens in it constantly since May. I am not even going to mention my flock of bantams, those I leave sitting on nothing unless I need something hatched.

 

[paigeioli]

I haven't separated my broody from the rest of the flock. Two are committed to hatching and each have 10 healthy developing chicks. The other 5 chickens I have continue to lay eggs under the broody, so I take those out every couple days. One hen is part time broody, acts like she is going to hatch eggs with the other two, and give up in less than a day.

Since the other girls are still laying in the broody boxes, I thought I would block off the boxes during lock down, and keep them separate for a week or so. Seems safer. I'm not sure how the rest of the flock is going to be with the chicks, especially since the two broody are lowest in the pecking order. I'm also not sure how the hens with separate clutches will be with each other. I'm prepared to keep everyone separate for a little while.

Though I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with 20 chicks. I can only keep maybe 3-5 hens, and maybe one nice rooster if I'm lucky.

 

[Mylied]

If you don't need some many eggs, you could just leave the broody with one egg each. I don't break my broodies. I let them hatch something. Seems easier. But I don't have them for eggs. I just have them for cuteness and raising babies. My egg layers don't ever go broody.

 

[Mylied]

I have silkies and showgirls and the moms protected the babies. I didn't keep them separate, I just kept an eye on things for the first few days.