When do Broodys turned Momma

[RinaRoo]

Start laying eggs again? All her babies are 8-13 days old.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Most my hens return to lay when the chicks reach about 6 weeks old or around when they boot the chicks out from under them full time. But it can be impacted by age, time of year (daylight), molting, and nutrition.

My earliest return to lay was when chicks were about 4 weeks of age.

Pics always welcome.

 

[chrissynemetz]

I agree, my hens have always averaged around 5 to 6 weeks before they would start laying again

 

[RinaRoo]

That's such a long time to wait for eggs again. My other two pullets haven't started laying yet, and they're 6 months old now.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

That's such a long time to wait for eggs again. My other two pullets haven't started laying yet, and they're 6 months old now.

It's a very long time to wait for eggs and one reason why many of us "break" our hens immediately instead of letting them sit. Including time to sit on egg, you could be without eggs for 8-12 weeks.

By breaking immediately if you don't need or want them to raise chicks, they usually return to lay within about a week.

In my experience... once a broody, always a broody... meaning you can count on her to go broody at least once every year. Some of my ladies will go twice. While others would go back to back to back, if allowed.

Another way to shorten your time without eggs is to incubator hatch and give her chicks before she has sat a full 3 weeks. Or adopt feed store chicks after they have sat at LEAST 1 week, which can also help reduce the number of cockerels you need to deal with if you by pullets and that is an issue for you. We eat our extra boys, but it's still a bit of a hassle to raise them.

 

[aart]

Start laying eggs again? All her babies are 8-13 days old.

Odd span of ages for a broody hatch...staggered hatch?

Agrees with the above posts soonest I've seen/read is weaning at about 4 weeks then eggs(or molt) soon after.

 

[RinaRoo]

Odd span of ages for a broody hatch...staggered hatch?

Agrees with the above posts soonest I've seen/read is weaning at about 4 weeks then eggs(or molt) soon after.

Yes, staggered hatch. I wasn't sure the eggs that were laid from the time she started sitting were fertile, so I bought some fertile eggs for her. The eggs laid by my hen were indeed fertile. So I had one hatch about every day, and the purchased ones were 5 days later. She abandoned the last two eggs, and one that was in the middle of the hatch, so I took them into the incubator since I knew they were due to hatch that very day.

Then I put them in the nest with her that evening once they finished hatching and all has bee well since, aside from one of the chicks disappearing. Of the four purchased ones, only one of them is still around. One egg was a dud. One was stepped on and broken open 3 days too early, and the one that disappeared was one of those too. So I only have one Swedish Flower. Hopefully that will be a pullet and not cockerel.