UPDATE post #10: What is my broody doing - I'm so bummed...

[macmama]

LOL-- I have the same problem! We were going to have 5... so I bought only 5 (good girl!) Then 3 months later one goes broody, and my mommy-emotions are too overwhelmed at the sight of her tucking a golf ball in for the night, so I bought her some fertile eggs. Now we have 5 hens, 9 chicks, and ANOTHER hen went broody so I get that one some eggs. They're due in 4 days, and I had to break the 3rd broody because enough is enough! (plus it's 110 here)

So now I have to figure out how many of the (possibly) 15 chicks we're keeping... Ahhhh chicken math.

 

[chickfan]

I'm glad to read that others feel like I do about the broodys....there is something so so sweet about them wanting to sit on something. I had one broody in a small nest box...she didn't come out for food or water (I did take her off the nest and put her in a pen with food and water at night though) and during the day, with it being so hot, I wanted to at least give her water. So I found a little plastic ash tray and put that in front of her...she would pull it under her and sit on it. She just had to sit on something!
I broke down and put fertile eggs under two broodys. Silly for me to do...we already have twice as many chickens as we have places for. Babies hatched...were in separate cages on my front porch. One cage also had a baby duck in it. This morning, a rat snake got into one of the cages and killed the little duck and about 3 chickens. As hard as I try to keep everyone as safe as I can, something that I never expected to happen, did happen. I had this cage secured with hardware cloth around all sides, but ran out of the wire, and the top of the cage had openings in it so something could get in. I put a heavy blanket on the top, thinking more about hoping the chickies couldn't jump high enough to get out (which they couldn't) and felt like they were secure. Early this morning, here comes a snake...right up on the porch...got into a cage right by my bedroom window...I slept through it. DH found this when he got up this morning. He did get the snake, and was so mad he killed it. (We usually try to re-locate non-poisonous snakes).
I'm so sad I can't think straight. It was totally my fault for not realizing what could happen.
I heard you could stick a chickens head down into a bucket of water and it would stop them from being broody. I can't bring myself to do that, and don't know if it works. I do wish they would quit being broody though. I get too emotional about it.