My family have been in the poultry business for 40 years but we acquired some day old Silkies for our own garden in May and now have one particularly broody hen.  Despite several tried and tested efforts she is determined to be broody and is sitting on 5 eggs at the moment. We feel its a little early for chicks as we could still get a cold snap, but fingers crossed all will be revealed 1st week in Feb!! You can watch our little brood on our web cam and hopefully you will see the little ones soon too.http://backyardfarmer.co.uk.  Will keep you posted.