Last year, after a series of missteps dealing with a broody hen, I thought I had it all figured out. But as it turns out, NOT!
Three weeks ago, when one of my chickens decided she wanted to brood, I knew I was going to allow her to sit on eggs. Free chicks! To try to make the process go more smoothly then last year, I moved her to the duck house, creating a nice, cozy nest box of straw in our cat carrier. After a night closed into the carrier, to get her used to the idea of raising her babies in the duck house, she happily stayed, sitting on the ceramic eggs. To test her commitment, I left her on the ceramic eggs for 3 days. Then I slipped them out from under her, and replaced them with a dozen freshly laid chicken eggs, from the other hens. She continued to sit. Good girl. As we reached two weeks, I started a mental countdown to chicks, expected to hatch on day 21. But at day 15, I opened up the coop to find my mama hen stumbling around in the duck house, with evidence of a broken egg in the box and plastered all over her breast and belly feathers, and the remaining eggs scattered around in the nest, and already starting to cool. I cleaned her off as best I could, and cleaned up the mess in the box. Although I thought it was probably too late to rescue the other eggs, I gave her a chance to go back to sitting. She declined. Sigh, no new chicks from that mama.
Luckily, right around that time another hen decided she wanted to brood. When I realize what she was doing, my first thought had been “Oh no!” but now I had a golden opportunity to try again to add new chicks to the flock. This time I decided to skip sitting on eggs. No free chicks. Instead I would resort to Tractor Supply and chick fostering. At least I would still have a mama hen do the work of raising them. I knew that I wanted to get the broody hen out of the chicken house and into the duck house before slipping chicks under her in the dark of night. I scrubbed out the cat carrier and recreated a cozy nest. Then I scooped the hen out of the nest box in the chicken house where she was sitting broody, and tucked her and my three ceramic eggs into the carrier. I closed them in for the night. The next morning, unlike her predecessor, when I opened the door to the carrier, she gave a chicken shriek, jumped up and made a break for the door. I scooped her up just as she was about to dash outside, and closed her back in the duck house, hoping that without me to disturb her, she would settle down and return to the nest I had made for her. Over the next few hours, she wandered the duck house, made a mad dash to try to escape every time I peeked in at her and never went anywhere near the ceramic eggs. Finally, as the end of the day approached, I had to admit defeat and let her out I thought that the stress of being separated from the other hens and spending the night in the duck house had discouraged her from brooding. Not so much. That evening, there she was right back in a nest box in the chicken house, broody as ever.
Over the next couple of days she continued to show her determination to brood, returning to the nest boxes every time I removed her. Putting baby chicks under a hen in the chicken house nest boxes resulted in a dead chick last year, when the chick jumped or fell out of the box and could not get back up to the mama hen. I do not want to try that again. But I had an idea. That evening, I set up an alternative nest in the back corner on the floor of the hen house, and put in the 3 ceramic eggs. If I could get her to nest on the floor, I could put the chicks under her there. It wasn’t the duck house, but still an improvement over the raised nest boxes. I waited until 1 a.m., when the chickens were sleeping, and moved her from the nest box to the nest on the floor. She wasn’t thrilled, but unwilling to move in the dark, she stayed where I had put her. Success! Well… you have probably guessed it couldn’t be that easy. When I opened up the chicken house the next morning, she was right back in the original nest boxes. But during the day, I noticed that she moved from where she started into a nest box that the other chickens were laying in. That gave me another idea. Throughout the day, I went in multiple times to collect any eggs the chickens had laid in the nest boxes, and while I was there I put her outside. Each time, when she came back in, the only eggs available for her to sit on were those in the nest on the floor. I thought it was a great idea. The other chickens thought it was a great idea as well. By the end of the day, there were 8 eggs, 5 contributed by the other hens, in my little nest on the floor. What was missing, however, was the broody hen, who was sitting stubbornly in a nest box with no eggs at all. I will try again tomorrow, but I am not optimistic. It is starting to look like I might have to go find a man-made chick warmer if I want chicks this year. I can’t believe I am being out stubborned by a chicken!
