Is my hen broody?

As the weather warms up and the days get longer all the hens are starting to lay now. Once a hen starts laying eggs she may go broody and want to hatch those eggs. Or is she just acting weird? Maybe the hen is sick? How do you know if your hen is broody or not?

There are a couple different clues a hen will give you when she goes broody. Broody behavior is not like any other type of behavior but sometimes people confuse it with the hen being sick or just at the bottom of the pecking order.

A sick hen will sometimes hide in the nest box and not want to come out to eat, get treats or get attention. These are also hallmarks of the broody behavior.  

Luckily there are a few other behaviors that a broody hen is known for that will tell us whether she truly is broody or if there's something wrong with her.

Broody hens, how to care for them

Broody hens are the easiest way to add new chicks to your flock. A good broody will take care of the chick rearing and all you really have to do is provide food and water. That makes it so much easier than caring for a brooder full of chicks! 

A broody hen does require a little bit of care though. She'll need a safe place to sit on her eggs for 21 days, food and water. After her chicks hatch she'll need a safe place to raise them.

She will take care of integrating the new chicks into the flock when the time comes. I've found that chicks raised by a broody hen are slightly less friendly with humans than those raised in a brooder.

The fact that it's so much easier to just let a broody hen do all the work though, makes it worth the little extra coaxing it takes to get the chicks to be friendly when they're older!

How and why to break a broody hen (this really works!)

I've had Silkies for as long as I've had chickens. I had heard they were great at raising chicks but I really didn't have a clue how determined they could get. When a Silkie goes broody she just doesn't give up! She will decide to hatch some babies and turn into an egg stealing, cranky butt! (yes, cranky butt is a technical term!)

My other chickens can usually be talked out of being broody pretty easily. A few days in a wire bottom cage and they throw in the towel. The Silkies just look at me like "is that all you got?" The last one was broody for almost 3 months. I thought I knew how to break a broody, but I sure learned a lot from those little fluffballs.

First things first, a broody doesn't just get that way by a quirk. It's a hormonal change. As much as I know that's true...there's also something viral about it because when one catches it, they all do! My coop can go from zero to six broodys in one week. 

Ok, so maybe that's just a coincidence or maybe one hens hormones are triggered by seeing another one trying to hatch chicks.

Whatever it is, the best way to prevent hens from going broody is to take away their eggs daily. The hen accumulates a clutch of eggs in order to hatch them and by taking them away each day they never accumulate a clutch. This doesn't always work to keep them from going broody but it seems to help, at least in my experience. 

Are you my mother?

Silkies are excellent mamas. I once saw them referred to as 'The best mama an egg could ask for'. Isn't that the cutest thing? It's true too. They love to hatch babies. They don't care what time of year, or even what kind of babies. When they go broody they will steal eggs if they have to! You know who make really bad mamas? Guineas. Yup...they're the absolute worst! 

Half the time guinea hens crush the eggs while they're sitting. If the keets do hatch out, mama's short attention span just about guarantees she will lose at least half of them. It's like she just doesn't even hear them peeping their little heads off. Drives me bonkers! I spend all day rushing outside and rounding up her keets for her, then she tries to peck me while I'm giving them back! The nerve!

Actually, there are a lot of breeds that don't do so well at brooding chicks. That's why you need a silkie! This is the story of Zippy the silkie hen who would hatch any egg you gave her and love those babies no matter how they hatched out!

Q-Tip and the babies

Letting a silkie hatch chicks

Q-tip is a silkie hen, just under a year old. She just hatched her first clutch. Wait....let's back up a month! There was a whole lot of egg stealing going on as Zippy (a black silkie hen about the same age) decided to sit on eggs first. Q' (pronounced cue-eee) thought that looked like the thing to do and set in Zippy's nest with her. After 3 days of egg stealing and fluffy squabbles, I picked Q' up and moved her to a high nest box. I gave her a few new eggs. 

At this point I have no idea whose eggs are whoes! I candle and give Zippy all the developing ones (since she's been sitting the longest) and the rest go to Q'. I wish I had gotten some pictures of what happened next! First Duchess a Mille Fleur D'Uccle hen decided to sit also, in Q's nest box. Then Princess (sister of Duchess) decided to sit in the next nest box. 

Days of confusion ensued as the broody hens swapped nests and stole eggs from each other! One of them would get up to eat and come back to someone else on her eggs! So she would steal eggs from someone else. *sigh* after about 2 weeks of this I moved Q' and 4 eggs to the dog crate. The Mille Fleur sisters gave up shortly after. 

Q' never gave up though, and a few days later out popped 4 little fuzzballs! 2 pure whites, a gray and a black&white ... no idea where that one came from! lol

I'm pretty sure the whites are from her eggs. The gray one is the exact color as Skids, who just started laying (named after the Transformers Character. Note: never let a 10 year old name the chickens. This is a name you might end up with!) So I believe Skids is its mama. The black and white.....I just don't know about that one. I guess I'll figure it out as she grows!

They are all happy and healthy. They are a little over a week old now, and just starting to get some feathers in. They loved being outside yesterday and scratching in the dirt with mama hen. They chased after little bugs that she scratched up for them, then snuggled back under her for a nap. Hopefully it will warm up soon, so they can go out and play again!

For some reason these first clutches can be troublesome! You should have seen how things went down the first time Pepper tried to set!

~L

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Pepper tries to set

About 3 weeks ago I started finding silkie eggs in the ground nesting boxes again. I had 3 possible suspects. 

First up is Frank: She hatched out her babies about 2 months ago and I'm expecting her to start laying again very soon.

Next up is Snowball: She's about 8 months old and she started to lay this summer, but has apparently taken a winter break. I'm hoping she started back up!



Last up is Pepper: She's about 5 months old and should start laying soon.

Turns out I caught BOTH pepper and snowball in nesting boxes one day, and happened to get 2 eggs that day! Yeay! Of course, that doesn't mean that Frank isn't laying. (short for Frankenstein....she had a vaulted skull when she hatched. The kids names her! lol) She could be also. 

Well of course this can't just be as easy as a few hens laying. Oh no! Pepper has decided to set her eggs. 

When pullets try to hatch eggs

DAY 1: Pepper got all comfy on the floor of the coop in front of the nest box while her egg sat all alone inside. I picked her up and set her on the egg and she settled in comfortably. 

DAY 2: The egg was so buried under the wood chips it was stone cold. So I dug it out and gave her a few eggs I had collected over the previous days. I cleaned out her nest box, changed the bedding and put her back and she settled in happily. 

DAY 3: Pepper woke up in the nest box, but came out for breakfast and instead of going back in the nest box, she settled down in front of it again. I picked her up and put her back in and she settled in. I came back a few hours later and she was sitting all puffed up, with most of the eggs in front of her NOT under her! Silly bird....I put her back in place.

DAY 4: Today. This morning Pepper was in her nest box on ALL her eggs (5 eggs) I'll give her another 2 days and if she's doing ok I will candle the eggs and see how they are doing. It's a good chance that all this on the nest/off the nest stuff caused the eggs to quit developing. If that is the case, I will swap them for fresh eggs (presumably laid by Snowball and maybe Frank) and see if she can make it work. 

It's her first time, and many hens have trouble with their first clutch. If all else fails, I'm going to be hatching for the spring season soon so I can break out the mini Brinsea and hatch her a few.

Wish her luck!

~L

Want information on raising chickens sent right to your email weekly? Click right here to join my list and get new posts sent directly to you the day they're published ... plus, you'll also get the free download '25 Ways to save money raising chickens'.