So i have a silkie hen
very gentle bird.
She has gone "broody", she sits on the eggs my other hen lays and stays there most of the day. I have to come up give a bit of a push to get the egg and then I have to take her out of the house so she can get something to eat and drink.
Now shes been broody before and I break it up but putting her in a crate on top of a plastic pallet that has lots of airflow underneath. I put her there for 3 days then release her and shes fine but I had to do this a few times this year.
so i am wondering if it could be something else ?
otherwise i need to find some fertile eggs.
I have had our broodey "Lacy" hen sitting on eggs for almost 21 days now. Today was day 20.
Basically she had been collecting eggs in a corner during the first days of November and it was raining full on for a few days so we didn't catch her until she had sat in them for 4 days. We decided to let her hatch the eggs since we could use more eggs anyways and we have the space for more chickens. Throughout the 20 days other hens went broody and tried to sit with her or in the box next to her, but we just removed them and they quickly broke out of it. Yesterday our biggest frizzle hen stole some of her eggs and sat next to her, I gave the eggs back to the original hen and removed the big frizzle from the nesting box area.
This morning I found a dead dry chick far from the nesting box area, the big frizzle hen was sitting on all the eggs with blood on her beak and the original hen was just standing there staring at the big frizzle and the stolen clutch.
I have since removed the frizzle hen, put the original hen back on the remaining eggs and isolated the original hen with her own food and water using metal mesh so the frizzle can't bother her.
Just wanted to share this as this is my first time hatching chicks and I am relatively new to chickens. And if anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it 🙏.
So I just had a hen lay her first egg. She's sitting on it and I'm wondering if I should let her try to hatch some out or wait a bit. I do have a rooster in the flock I'm worried about winter tho. I'm in central kentucky for climate questions
I have about 12 eggs in the incubator. I took them from my chickens as I upgraded their coop. As soon as they lay them I put them in the incubator. So they will hatch on consecutive days. Can I encourage a hen to go broody and put the eggs under her so she will take care of them when they hatch?
My broody girl has ALWAYS been broody since we got her. We started with six hens in our suburban brood - bought them from Craigslist and they’ve been with each other since they were chicks (they were 1.5 years old when we brought them home). One passed from something unknown, and we also had one that got killed by a hawk last winter. It was really traumatizing for them.
Fast forward to now - broody girl is getting attacked by one of the other hens. The issue is just between the two of them as far as I can tell. The other two don’t seem to be involved. Right now we have the broody hen separated living in her own little enclosure. I wanted to give her some time to heal up because she had some light wounds on her comb from being pecked before I was able to shoo away the other hen.
I’m not sure what the next move is. I’m happy to keep her separated for awhile, but I’m wondering if I isolated the right hen. Maybe I should be isolating the attacker? Idk, it’s really stressing me out because it’s about to get a lot colder and I want her to go back to being with the rest of the girls before November rolls around.
Any advice on dealing with fighting within the brood?
So I have this one grey hen that has been broody all year. She’ll go maybe a few weeks or a month without being broody, but then gets broody again. We let her hatch chicks twice over this spring and summer but we either had to raise them ourselves or they would disappear because she would abandon them. Not a good mother. Can’t dunk her in water to break her fever because it’s getting cold out and we don’t want to freeze her. She’s also starting to get bony. We don’t know why she’s broody so much. Any advice to break her persistent broodiness?
I had a Hen that was broody and sitting on her eggs for about 3 nights before I finally found where she was nesting last night and I had plans to move her nest tonight because something could've got her where she was.
However when I went out to check on her today the Hen was nowhere to be seen and she only had 2 eggs left in her nest. Could it be a possibility that she moved the eggs or should I assume the worst?
So we have four beautiful silkies
one of em has recently started laying eggs, and we take em out every day. The past three days however we werent home and noone took away her eggs. So today when she was out and about in the morning I took out her two eggs.
But now she has been sitting in her coup for at least a couple hours. Normally she only takes about half an hour to an hour to lay an egg and then go back to the rest of her day. Im worried shes become broody and will shut down in favor of breeding out her eggs.
how do i go about this situation? Do I remove my chicken? Do I switch the egg with something else? Do I bring her food when shes inside?
Shes the smallest of our little flock and she has been slightly wheezing lately (a kind of whistling sound) so i dont think she can afford to start breeding now when winter is almost upon us. And I dont want her to be depressed because she cant hatch an egg.
anyone got any experience with this?
Hey everyone! So my hen went broody and I got her some fertilized eggs to hatch. They started yesterday and she has 4 so far with one working on breaking out of the shell.
My question is should I provide anything extra for them? I’ll provide a second feeder with starter crumble and a different water dish.
I usually hatch them in an incubator and brood them inside but I’m letting her run the show this time.
Hello. Has anyone had a broody hen that hatched chicks out in October in a colder region before? We live in Arkansas and our lovely lady has about 10 chicks about to hatch on Friday. I’m nervous it will be too cold for them and I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions?
Hi,
I have a hen who's recently gone quite broody. I've tried kicking her off the nest and taking the eggs, but she just keeps going back. I usually gently nudge her off with a hockey stick because she tries to peck at anything that comes too close while she's on the nest. I know a broody jail would probably be the next step but I don't really have another coop or anything to put her in. Any advice?
