What if 2 broodies are fighting over the same nest?

[chickenannie]

My BO hen sat on her nest of 10 eggs for 10 days. Now this darned RIR broody sneaks into the BO henhouse and manages to get in the nest somehow. I'm so upset because RIR hen only sits on part of the eggs anyways and is NOT doing a good job.

I've been removing RIR broody at night and putting BO broody back on *her* nest (when i get home from work they're always both there, with one on the outside perch trying to get back in and they roost like that!). I gave RIR broody her own nest with eggs in a second nest box yesterday, but she sat there for one night then stole back the nest from the BO broody again, leaving my second nest of eggs to chill.

What can I do? How do I convince RIR to brood ELSEwhere?

 

[frankie5316]

This happened to me to, i was told to seperate the other chickens from the original broody hen and everything went well from there. do this as soon as possible, since all of my chickens wanted to lay in the same nest, many of my hens eggs were damaged and she had a poor hatch.

 

[skeeter9]

I feel your pain!!! I had a similar situation last fall with a BO and an Australorp. I thought that they would work it out, but I was wrong. After sitting on the the eggs for 20 days, I went out to find that they had gotten into a fight on the nest and destroyed most of the chicks, which were internally pipped and beginning to hatch. I'm not sure what the best solution is, but if I had it to do over again I would remove one of the broodies with her eggs and put them in a place by themselves. The other girl won't be happy, but she'll get over it. Hope this helps.

Lori

 

[QueenieBee]

I had this happen recently and had to remove my original broody hen and place her in a separate place. The other hen would not leave her alone and would trample the eggs/chicks.