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Broody Chickens

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  • 14-05-2010 4:44pm
    #1
    PLOT2PLATE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4 ✭


    Am keeping 11 chikens for last couple of months, most of laying, some still too young.
    Mayhem for last week as one is broody and first pestered the rest before we isolated her and she now content but none of the others are laying !!!!

    How long can i expect this brooding to go on ??

    Noelle


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    #2
    Morganna
    Registered Users Posts: 701 ✭✭✭Morganna


    Hens sit for 21 to 23 days .


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    #3
    PLOT2PLATE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4 ✭PLOT2PLATE


    thanks, got one egg today so maybe the others are getting over the shock.


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    #4
    LisaO
    Registered Users Posts: 462 ✭✭LisaO


    If you have no cockerel then she will be sitting on infertile eggs that will never hatch. Depending on the hen, she could sit on them indefinitely. Some hens are more disposed to brooding than others. I've had 2 go broody so far this year, one I have persuaded not to sit by lifting her off nest several times a day, removing all eggs. After a couple of days she gave up. The other hen is now sitting on a clutch of duck eggs for me.

    If you don't intend to hatch chicks it is kinder to break the brooding early on, as the longer you let them sit, the harder it will be.

    Hens brooding in the nest boxes will upset the others but things usually settle down after a few days once the offending hen is removed or has stopped sitting.


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    #5
    Graces7
    Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    LisaO wrote: »
    If you have no cockerel then she will be sitting on infertile eggs that will never hatch. Depending on the hen, she could sit on them indefinitely. Some hens are more disposed to brooding than others. I've had 2 go broody so far this year, one I have persuaded not to sit by lifting her off nest several times a day, removing all eggs. After a couple of days she gave up. The other hen is now sitting on a clutch of duck eggs for me.

    If you don't intend to hatch chicks it is kinder to break the brooding early on, as the longer you let them sit, the harder it will be.

    Hens brooding in the nest boxes will upset the others but things usually settle down after a few days once the offending hen is removed or has stopped sitting.


    Care is needed with eg bantams that are ferocious mothers. They can brood into a decline.Kinder to remove the eggs a few at a time. else she may well simply replace them in the nest with more; mark the ones that are there clearly.

    I am smiling here... The man with the shed opposite, he of the incarcerated pony and wandering goat, has free range hens. Free to range all over the road etc.

    He has clearly never kept hens before.

    He has been up and down the mountain, searching the hen house and verges for eggs...Looking bewildered and cross

    Looking in every clump of rushes...

    Of course, these neglected birds will all have gone broody and be sitting happily on well hidden clutches. He has a cockerel so soon there will be chicks abounding.

    Meanwhile, no eggs.


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