broody hen, what to do

[Gro-Bag]

I have had my 3 cream legbars for a year now and they are great, - but one of them keeps going broody. The sin-bin works for a couple of weeks only and then she's off again...she isn't aggressive, but is so plaintive about being turfed off the eggs - makes me feel sorry for her. I have found a supplier who will sell me fertile eggs and take back cockerels...so on hearing that I got all excited last night and set her up in her own wee coop. she was ecstatic to find three eggs in a nest and was sitting on them pretty soon afterwards.

Decisions now about fertile eggs for a swap...what breed, how many to get, whether to keep any or sell them on...I was perfectly happy with my three birds, and I like CLs, but this guy doesn't have any CL eggs, if I sourced CLs anywhere else I would have the cockerel problem (and being a veggie and a softie the pot isn't an option). I have a few qs - any advice gratefully recieved -

Firstly, I am hoping it is just about being broody, but my hen has gone, very, very quiet now on her eggs. She is warm and looks well, but she is very, very still, and tranced out - is this normal when they are sitting?

I don't have masses of space so was thinking of just maybe keeping one of the chicks and selling/ rehoming any others when they get bigger...will that work? ie will the youngster of another breed settle in alright with the three older CLs?

I have also heard about broody hens adopting day-old chicks - is this an alternative? - the temptation of just one chicken, and autosexed, eg another CL is great - but don't want to mess about if it isn't pretty much certain to work, failure with that would be horrible...

All advice gratefully recieved.

[RichmondHens]

Your hen sounds perfectly normal. They do go all dozey when sitting. Some get a bit pecky if you try and shift them but this is often down to how used they are to being handled. Others are dozey all the way through and only start getting pecky when the chicks hatch and they start wanting to protect them.

Re hatching, I would strongly recommend that if you cannot deal with the cocks yourself, you should really have a long think about whether you should hatch any at all, unless you can find homes for them in advance. There is no guarantee that you will get any hens from one hatch, so you really do need to consider this very carefully.

Any breed you hatch will be fine introduced to your legbars, although it's always easier to introduce more than just one - they will get picked on and introducing several will spread the load.

Re introducing day old chicks to broodies - quite tricky unless she has at least one of the same age she has hatched herself. And you do need to put them under as young as possible, preferably no more than two days old, and do it at night when mum is unlikely to get off.

[Gro-Bag]

Thanks - that's good - I thought it was probably normal, but she was so still this morning it gave me a fright - I thought she had died until I stroked her and she clucked!

OK, will think some more about going with the eggs then. Yes, the thought of having to deal with cockerels has always put me off the idea of chicks before, but as I said, this guy will take them back, and no hens won't be a problem as I am not desperate for more, although one more might be nice...

[Gro-Bag]

Ooh - well, this guy has brassy black marans, or white Ixworths in hatching eggs - and has confirmed that he will take back cockerels. Never been all that taken with white birds somehow, but I would rather like a black maran...or two...hmmm... ; )

[Glutton4...]

I have three Marans, Gro-Bag, and they're proving to be unreliable layers, and scatty to handle, but that may just be because I've got ex-batts to compare them to!

Good luck with the hatching, I've got eight eggs under my broody Goose at the moment. They haven't been there a week yet, and the suspense is killing me - and I've still got another four weeks to wait

[Gro-Bag]

ah - more scatty birds eh? They'd fit in well with the cream legbars then, lol.

[Gro-Bag]

Ooh I know what you mean about the suspense now - my broody CL has been sitting on the marans eggs for all of two days...and I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Let us now how it goes with your hatchlings - good luck.

[Glutton4...]

Ooh I know what you mean about the suspense now - my broody CL has been sitting on the marans eggs for all of two days...and I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Let us now how it goes with your hatchlings - good luck.

My suspense is over - Mrs. Goose has gone off the boil, so I've binned the eggs!

Good luck with yours - and get the camera battery charged, you know what we're like!

[Gro-Bag]

What a shame!

I really hope my Mrs Broody sticks with it now, although I was ambivalent about it at first. She does seem very, very determined - only comes off them once a day when I lift her off, eats ravenously, does a huge poo, stretches her legs a bit and then is back on those eggs in about 5 minutes! I'm convinced that if I didn't physically take her off those eggs and put her next to the food she wouldn't eat. She doesn't seem interested in drinking though, which is a bit of a worry. When she's on the eggs she's very unresponsive to anything - off in her own broody world.

[Glutton4...]

Awwww, bless. Sounds like proper broody behaviour, from what I've read.