To eat or not to eat...

[nzchookhaven]

I have two flocks of hens each with one presiding rooster. It is Spring here and I am really wanting to get some wee chicks. I get about 20 eggs a day from my flocks which are normally sold to eat. Do I just leave some eggs out there for hens to get broody on or do I take them inside? Where do I start in growing my own wee chicks? Please. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[sylviethecochin]

What sort of hens do you have? If you want broodies, be mindful that leghorns and RIRs are not chick-raising mamas. If you have silkies, BuffOs, or Cochins, leaving out eggs might work. I, however, would personally leave out golf balls. They won't go bad if it takes a while, they'll press on the breast bone (which sometimes triggers broodiness) and they don't crack and make a mess all over the place if the box gets overcrowded.

Golf balls have the additional advantage of not drawing rats.

You'll need somewhere for the broody to sit--dark, quiet, where no other sisters can bother her and lay eggs on top of the ones she already has. You may want to select eggs for lack of porousness and other deformities, or order eggs online from another breed you want.

Really, it's easiest to let the hens get broody on their own and then separate them for the duration of the setting.

You might buy some silkies, if you want chicks. They're infamous broodies. We have three, and two of them went broody this year. One was chased out by our rat problem, but the other raised twelve peeps.

EDT: Broodiness is contagious! Beware! I'd never had a broody standard hen before this past year, and all of a sudden, I had five. Out of twelve.

 

[QChickieMama]

What did you do, Sylvie, with 5 broody hens?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

By all means remove any eggs you plan on hatching to the inside of your house, date them, then store them big end up or small end down at 45 to 55 degrees fahrenheit and about 65% relative humidity and whatever you do turn your eggs 5 times each and every day until you either have an incubator full or a hen turns broody. It is also a good idea to candle the eggs first so that you can eliminate any with weak or cracked shells. Don't set dirty eggs.

I can not overemphasize how important turning eggs is to a good hatch. Setting hens turn their own eggs over 90 times every 24 hours.

 

[sylviethecochin]

What did you do, Sylvie, with 5 broody hens?

I let them set. One hatched seven, one hatched twelve, one hatched nine, one got scared off her nest by rats and hatched none, and one hatched only two--which I stuck under nine-chick hen because two-chick wasn't being a good momma.

No, the big question is--what to do with the chicks. Luckily, twelve-chick hen was setting mostly on BB Old English Game Bantams, so I just sold those a few weeks ago.

 

[Spiderduck]

I just left eggs out. The ones i wanted like the nice big fat ones. I placed them neatly in a cardboard box which was lined with straw.

I have 2 hens that go broody so they know.
They normally make broody sounds around summer time may-august.
Then they will sit on the box and do their thing.

 

[bobbi-j]

Just leaving eggs out is not necessarily going to make a hen go broody, and sometimes hens of even the most notorious broody breeds don't set.

If you want eggs on YOUR schedule, you're better off getting an incubator. If you want to wait and see if you get a broody, that's fine, too. Last spring when I was getting a dozen eggs a day, I would just keep the freshest eggs on the counter. If I gathered eggs on Tuesday, they'd sit on the counter until I picked Wednesday's eggs, then put them in the fridge and keep Wednesday's eggs out. That way when I got a broody, I'd have a dozen fresh eggs to put under her.