Tell me how to help my hen hatch her eggs......

Remudamom

Songster
11 Years
Oct 10, 2008
295
3
141
West of the Mississippi
We are in Kansas. Still a bit cold. My Silkies are not laying yet, but I had planned on letting them set on some eggs. Do you gather them up until she/you are ready? Leave them alone? How do you protect them?

I've used an incubator before, but this time I want the chickens doing the work.
 
Chickens set when their ready not you, I wish mine would, but with the wheather so odd this year it's hard to determine. I had hens trying to set in December, but as soon as it got colder they decided to stop. I have started an incubator; because I am to impatient; or you'll just have to wait for your hens to go broody and the wheather to warm up, because thats when they like to set on their own eggs. Meanwhile collect them until one goes broody or try an incubator its alot of work, but it pays off alot sooner. Good luck and I hope you have a broody hen soon
 
How many hens do you have? I would wait till one is broody and then just add that days eggs to her nest. Cause it could be a day or a month or never that one goes broddy. If you only have a couple hens I would still wait till one is broody then save eggs for a few days and then put them under her.
 
I've had my "darling" silkie lady for almost a year now...and i'm still waiting on her to go broody for me!!! It's like she senses how bad I want it, and she's rebelling against me.
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Im not sure it this is the reason my hen went broody within a month of beginning to lay or not but this is what I did. I left three eggs in her nest , marking the newly laid egg and taking the oldest one. I did this because she did not like me taking her eggs and would lay in different spots around the yard and pen. I was trying to get her to use the nest box for laying and the next I knew, she was sitting.
 
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I wish that would work with my hens, I have tried leaving fake eggs in the nest boxes and the real eggs if they hide a nest and nothing has worked.
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I finaly gave up and just stuck ours in the incubator.
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I guess I just got lucky because I wanted my one and only hen to make me a grandma. I want more hens but I want them to come from her and roos that I already have. I just dont want to bring any more in from the outside if I dont have to.
 
Eggs will stay good at room temperature for several days. If you are not getting very many eggs but want to be ready for a broody, rotate your egg storage. Say you want to brood 12 eggs. Save up until you have 12 eggs, then every day after that, take away and refrigerate or use the older eggs and save your newer eggs. That way you aways have a dozen ready to go if a hen goes broody.
 

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