Broody hens?

[Millymollymandy]

I wish I could send you some duck eggs, Russ!

how about training them to fly to me lay a few then fly back (pigeons can home)

Russ

They are too fat/heavy to fly!

[farmerdrea]

Some breeds are more inclined to go broody, and bantams even more so than other chooks, but yes, one can make the others go broody. When I was a child, we mostly just had bantams, and one would go broody in the spring, and before you know it, you'd have a pile of broody hens filling up the nesting boxes. We tried the draught cage trick and it never worked (this is over 12 years of raising chooks when I was young), because we didn't like my grandmother's (she grew up on a farm in Germany) method even though it always worked. One quick dunk in a bucket of cool water and the hen is just shocked out of it, and goes off in a huff to preen herself. Now I just leave them to it. I've never had a hen starve herself to death in over 20 years of rearing chooks, and we have enough birds laying all the time that a shortage of eggs isn't usually a worry.

Cheers
Andrea
NZ

[Baymair]

I would love one or any of mine to go broody. I'm planning to rear birds for meat, and would prefer them to have had a mothers' love and a natural life as much as possible. So if any of you get fed up with having a broody, please let me know and she could enjoy a full time job here with me

[MINESAPINT]

Just re entered this thread to say I heard on the radio this morning that someone plunges broody hens into a bucket of cold water for an instant cure but note it has already been mentioned. Might try it next time although I have to say separating the birds from the flock to a cage always works although it usually takes a week.

[Witsinfr]

We've just had the first of our many chickens go broody, so we decided to let her get on with it.

She was seperated from the others in her own 'maternity' ward (dog travel crate (minus dog)) and a couple of days ago we heard the first cheeps from under her. We know the sound as we've also had a couple of batches through an incubator.

Haven't brought her out into the main area yet, will do this after a while, but we believe that we have three newbies being brought up the correct way. However saying that we've had around a 66% success rate using the incubator.

[red]

excellent

our broody was given 12 eggs in March and she raised 3, and those three all turned out to be girls, and have now started to give us eggs themselves..

[godfreyrob]

A hen we hatched last year (A silkie/black rock cross!) went broody last week - so I moved her and sat her on 6 Cambar eggs. Its now day 10 and alls well so far.

Its the second time she has gone broody this year - in May she hatched 7 chicks and has been a great mother. I also have 2 pure white silkies that spend very little time away from the nest box - they lay an egg or two and just want to sit! They don't seem to have any effect on the other hens though (they share with 6 others of various types).

Its the simplest way of hatching by far - and the after-care is simple too (No brood chamber to clean and keep warm). But you don't get to see the chicks much, whereas using an incubator you become mum and spend a lot more hands on time with them.