How can I make my chicken go broody?
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Chickens | 344 comments
Every now and then I get an email from someone who desperately wants a chicken to go broody. Going broody means that the hen suddenly fancies raising a brood of chicks and will sit on the eggs constantly to incubate them until hatched.
You can’t make a hen go broody. It’s like trying to make X more amusing, or sexy. Either X has the tendency to be amusing or sexy or does not.
If you want to breed chicks you need an incubator or a broody hen. There are strains that have a tendency to go broody. Bantams (a small breed of chicken) are well known to be more prone to broodiness. They can be great mothers. Despite this tendency, we have six bantams and only two have gone broody over the past three years.
I have been told that Silkie bantams go broody at the drop of a hat. Some pals that had a shoot and raised pheasant eggs, used Silkie bantams with great success. But you could buy a flock of Silkies that never go broody. It’s the luck of the draw.
Mrs Boss is the one bantam chicken in our flock that goes broody regularly. Her comb gradually pales from red to pink and she will sit in the nesting box, caring for any eggs that have been laid. She is not bothered about the progeny and will happily sit on anything as long as it’s egg shaped.
It’s important to check your chickens every day and lift a broody hen off the nest. Left sitting, a broody hen may not move. If not shunted out of the nesting box to eat and drink, she will die. The sad fact is that without a cockerel to fertilise her eggs, an undisturbed broody hen will pointlessly sit on a nest of unfertilised eggs indefinitely.
If you have fertilised eggs and want to breed, a broody chicken is a boon. Settle her in a quiet place with her own supply of food and water. She will get up every now and then to stretch her legs but she will care for her eggs.
A bantam will generally be a good mother. Any sitting hen connects with any chick when she hears the first cheep. A hen sitting on eggs will generally accept all fowl that emerge from an egg that is placed under her. This could be a pheasant, guinea fowl, partridge, quail, duck or chicken. We haven’t tried ostrich or peacock (it’s a question of space).
It’s important to provide a safe environment, well away from the rest of the flock. Chickens do not go all gooey eyed when new, trembly legged chicks emerge. There is a pecking order. Need I say more?
Mother and chicks retire earlier than the other chickless hens each evening and so need a separate apartment for the first few weeks. Initially, the mother hen teaches the chicks how to drink, forage and run from danger (under her protective wing) from the word go.
Think laterally and protect your precious chicks from danger. A large stone in the drinking saucer will stop them drowning in the water. You also need to check that bullying is not going on. If this is happening, fence off the separate apartment.
I am very fond of Mrs Boss. Heaven knows why – she is broody on and off all summer. Her broodiness is a problem for us. It affects the rest of our small flock. Broody hens will chase other normal egg-laying hens out of the nesting box. Egg production goes down.
I have learnt that leaving Mrs Boss to her own devices is a downward spiral. She will not give up. She is resolute and single minded unitil I escort her to the prison cell broody coop. Now I clean out the broody coop and pop her in as soon as I spot her comb going pale. I feel a pig but if I catch her early in her broody state, her stay at Her Majesty’s Pleasure is just a matter of days.
She puts in a vociferous High Court appeal every time I pass by the run and her broody coop cell. This is ignored until her comb turns red again. Then the prison doors are thrown open and she rushes out for a dust bath.
If anyone needs a broody hen I would gladly lend Mrs Boss, although I would miss her because it takes three to four months to hatch and nurture a brood until they are old enough to fend for themselves.
My dream is that one day we will be offered fertilised eggs around the time that Mrs B is going broody. There was a fleeting hour or so this spring when someone needed to hatch out some duck eggs.
“Do you have a broody hen?”
“Well, yes. Mrs Boss.”
“I might bring round some duck eggs.”
Danny had a happy day imagining baby ducks swimming in a teeny pond (upturned dustbin lid in the chicken run.) Mrs Boss hovered in the nesting box. Finally we had the call. No duck eggs. Mrs Boss was popped into the broody coop and egg laying by the other hens erupted for the day. Chickens save up and the shells are harder.
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Does anyone have any idea of how old a hen has to be to go broody?
nah, im there most of the time and wen i go away my neighbours help.
Found a recipe for champagne!
Put 12-16 heads of elderflowers,
The juice and rind of a lemon,
1lb 8oz of sugar
and 4.5 litres of water and leave for 24 hours.
Then strain into plastic bottles and screw up very tight.
(note: leave about 5 cm air in the top to capacitate for the gas.)
leave this in a cool dark place for a fort night.
if there is no visible fermentaiton in the first 24hours, put in some yeast. Brewers yeast is best but bread yeast is fine.
Drink before three weeks old.
Good luck! ENJOY!
Hello Amanda
James has given you excellent advice. I think that the idea of the mini cage with Cheep Cheep inside is excellent!
It’s always difficult to know when to let the young out. I’m in the same quandary at the moment with our month old runner ducklings. They are huge but I’m not sure how the rest of the flock will respond to them and once the doors of the Emerald Castle are opened it’s unlikely that they will return once they’ve seen the bright lights of the bigger run. And then we have the problem of overcrowding in the dormitory of the hen house at night!
Hi James
Great advice. Thank you.
What a shame about your sisters.
It’s down to me too here with our livestock but the good thing is that I always know exactly where I am with them! No one has mucked anything up. Total responsibility can be a good thing sometimes.
Have you thought of paying them to help? I™ve found that this is a good way of getting tip top help when you need it!
Hi amanda, i guess that you should keep him seperate from the others until he is at least half thier size, unless his mom is quite fiesty or the others are very calm (mine certaintly arn’t!)
If you are not shure then what i would do is build a chick sized box out of wire, pop him in and then pop that in with the others, if they attack him, get him out sharpish! if not leave him for a bit. If you o this every day they should get used to him.
Hi fn, no, sisters do not help, they spilled the food and broke eggs & forgot to shut them up that night. I rest my case.
Hello, after buying 6 eggs from ebay and a couple of mishaps our clever chicken hatched one slikie egg. Cheep Cheep is doing well and is now 3 weeks old. He and his mum are in their own enclosure. How long before they can be let out with the other chickens anyone please? I don’t know where we would have been without your brilliant forum. Thanks!
Hi James
Thanks for these tips – very useful indeed.
I haven’t got a recipe for Elderflower champagne, yet!
I think that pigs probably need some sort of shelter – you can make a good one from straw bales.
Love your inventory of animals and siblings. So your sisters help with the animals?
hi Becky, i wouldnt separate the chicks at this age, wait until next year.
As for the incubation, get a digital thermometer and hygrometer and check it every day for a week before putting eggs in.
Also, are you sure you are using fertile eggs?
Finally, make sure it is in an aired but not windy room and out of direct sunlight.
Hi everyone, anyone got a good elderflower champagne recepie?
Anyone know wether pigs need a house in a wood?
Thanks, James
(21 CHICKENS, 10 MORE COMING SOON, 4 SHEEP 6 MORE COMING SOON 4 DUCKS, 9 DUCKLINGS 4 PIGS NEXT SPRING, 4 BREEDING RABBITS, A CAT, A DOG, TWO SISTERS)
Hi Becky
What a shame about the failed egg incubations. It must have been so disappointing.
The broody hen route is good as she will look after the chicks until they can fend for themselves. This can take some time.
Your chicks are only six weeks old.
Your hen will not go broody until her chicks have left her side. This can take months. She is now in 100% mothering mode hormonally.
Even if you separate her from the chicks she might not go broody until next spring. Pointing her at a nest of eggs will not make her go broody. Why not let the family grow up together? You can have another go with her next year.
If it’s really important to raise more chicks why not research what went wrong will your incubation process? I have no experience with this but there’s loads of information out there on the internet.
hi,im looking for some info if some one could help…first off great site,friendly people…..i have had 2 failed artificial incubations,i have a hen that has 8 chicks and have decided that i should give natural incubation a try…her chicks are around 6 weeks old and was wondering if i was to seperate her from her chicks would she sit on more eggs or would i have to wait a while?
Hi James
Well done for providing an environment where you duck can hatch healthy ducklings! That’s what it’s all about. Congratulations.
Thumper is a great chicken but I don’t know wht breed she is. When I bought her the breeder was not forthcoming. Just said, “She’s a hybrid layer.”
Hi Karen
Unil a few weeks ago I had had only bad experiences with geese and then I went to an auction and discovered several friendly geese! I was asonished. These geese wanted to be cherished and stroked.
Good luck with your turkeys. I hope that everything works out for you all.
Hello Emma,
Sorry to haear that the pekin eggs didn’t make it. There must be places on the internet that can give you some pointers about the level of humidity in an incubator. You might be able to download some instructions if you look up the manufacturer of your incubator. Just a thought, I did this for our dishwasher!
Hi James
Well done for providing an environment where you duck can hatch healthy ducklings! That’s what it’s all about. Congratulations.
Thumper is a great chicken but I don’t know what breed she is. When I bought her the breeder was not forthcoming. Just said, “She’s a hybrid layer.”
She was a good layer (an egg a day in her prime). But she’s now four years old so egg production has halved. As she is a pet she will live here until she goes to that vast green meadow in the sky. Any eggs are appreciated but no longer expected.
You are so enterprising selling your chickens! Glad to hear that the new ones are laying well.
Best of luck with the hatching.
We are all well. Thanks for asking.
Hi Karen
Until a few weeks ago I had had only bad experiences with geese and then I went to an auction and discovered several friendly geese! I was astonished. These geese wanted to be cherished and stroked.
Good luck with your turkeys. I hope that everything works out for you all.
Hello Emma,
Sorry to hear that the Pekin eggs didn’t make it. There must be places on the internet that can give you some pointers about the level of humidity in an incubator. You might be able to download some instructions if you look up the manufacturer of your incubator. Just a thought, I did this for our dishwasher!