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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Thanks for the advice James et al. As he is a Silkie and the rest of his mothers gang are Surrey Sussex and Moran, he is very small compared them. Cheep Cheep and his mother have been in full view of the others from day one so I hope that they will have got used to seeing him around. However in another 3 weeks or so we will try the cage approach and see what they make of it. My brilliant hubby has made a magnificent aviary for breeding cage birds and at the moment Cheep Cheep and his mum are having a ball in there, on some old tree stumps my hubby put in there! We have another we think may be going broody. n She comes out with the others every morning but soon goes back and there she stays all day! Soooooo… anyone in the Berks or Wilts area got any hatching eggs?
Hi James
Thanks for this, I have no experience of raising chicks myself.
hi, if you dont want to do wat fn said, i would go down to poundland and get a plastic box then go on the internet (ascot smallholding supplies is good) and buy a heat lamp about £30 i think or buy one from a store. if you want a cheaper optioni suggest you buy a lamp and an infrared bulb (no idea how much a lamp, £10ish i guess but the bulb is only about 2.99-3.99 and some black paper.
Cover the box sides with it and maybe, half the top and set your lamp up. It is better to get a lamp with a height adjuster, because if too hot(all as far away from the lamp as poss) or to cold( all huddled together under the lamp) you can move up or down until happy. under the lamp but not touching eachother and moving around occasionally.
Also but stones in your drinker to stop them drowning.
Hope it helps!
End of lecture.
lol
Hi Karen
You have two options. Either swap the chicks for the eggs under a broody, one by one. Or raise them yourself.
Hi Debbie
Great the the broody coop worked for your hen! Thanks for the update, really useful information.
One of of my chicks was broody for 2 weeks, I made a broody coop & put her in it last Sunday.
I let her out after 3 days & she was fine for a while & then back in the nest box, she went back in the broody coop for another few days.
I let her out on Friday early evening & she was fine.
Here we are on Sunday & there is no sign of her being broody.
Thanks for your advice on the broody coop,
recommended for a broody chick
hi james.
i am collecting some day old chicks today. how can i look after them myself at home.all my hens are sitting on eggs so they can not accomodate them
Hi James
Thanks for this information, really useful to know. Excellent!
Having missed the elederflowers I’m going for broke with elderberry wine in the autumn!
Bantams will go broody between 8 months and about four-five years old(i think). They will sit for ages and ages, my friends’s sat for nearly a month and a half!
Normal chickens (wellsummers, rhode islands and light sussex types) can sit between about 10 months abd five years and will sit for about a month at max, and hybrid layers/eaters will sit from about 15 months to 30 months and for about two to two and a half weeks, or so my local chicken farmer says. he has loman browns, a german breed and lay 300 for first 2-3 years.
hi fn, sorry to hear about the elderflower but as you say, there is always next year!!!!
Hi Jesse M
I don’t know exactly. I think that it depends on the breed. Our hens started to go broody about a year after hatching.
Hi James
Thanks so much for the recipe. My elder tree has just gone over so I’ll have to wait until next year to try this one!
Hope that all your stock are well!