I was so excited to find out that I a broody hen! It was my Goldie! She is a gold Buff Orphington and I noticed that she was in the nesting box when we collected eggs in the morning(not unusual) and then a little boy wanted to collect an egg mid day and she was still in there but I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until I let all of the hens out of their run that I figured out she was broody! I didn’t see her so I went to check the nesting box and there she was…Growling at me:) I new she was broody but before I purchased fertile eggs I wanted to make sure she would stick with it if I transferred her. So that NIGHT I went and got her out of her nesting box and moved her into a medium sized dog crate. And put the crate in this enclosure(It’s next to that open window so that swap cooler air can keep her cool. I have been told that this is really late in the season to be broody due to the heat and she is NOT a heat tolerant bird)
The dog crate had alfalfa hay in it and then pine shavings on top so that she could make a nice deep pit for her eggs. Now she was not sitting on eggs at this point. She was sitting on BALLS! LOL all different colors of balls! I put 12 balls under her to see if she would keep them all and she did!!! So that morning I ran to a local chicken raiser who has fertile eggs and purchased a dozen for 8$
That NIGHT(important to always do things at night for chickens) I made the switch from BALLS to eggs! I was so happy to see her snuggled up on all of the eggs in the morning!
She is such a great mommy! You can see in this next video how she tends to her nest and warns away danger(lol My camera).
When a chicken is “broody”: wanting to sit on her eggs to hatch them. She will stay on the nest 24/7. She will only get up once a day for a very short time to get a drink, eat and, poop and then she is right back on the nest! It’s amazing dedication! The brief break gives the eggs a much needed cooling period and then the mommy turns them as she gets back on her nest.
Here you can see her getting pretty ticked at us for being near her nest on one of her very rare outings!
After she sat on her eggs for 9 day I decided to candle some of them and see how things were going. I used my husband LED flash light to put behind the egg and wrapped my hand around the it. As you can see there is the beginnings of a chick!
In this video you can actually see the chick moving around inside! We were in Awe!
I candled this egg on the same night and I didn’t see anything inside
I am leaving it in to see if it will still develop…we’ll see
Stay tuned! Hatching day is May 24th!!
1 comment:
So fun!!! I had never even thought of putting another chickens eggs with a broody hen. How old is Goldie? I may have to do this when I get a broody hen.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but does this mean you won't have to work as hard during the chick stage? Will she care for the babies once they hatch? Will they live in the coop with your other chickens right away? I'm intrigued!
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