New mama hen won’t get off unviable eggs, possibly injuring new babies

[jillianjo]

Our broody hen was sitting on her first clutch of eggs and hatched 3 of the 5 eggs over the first 2 days. I checked the other 2 eggs and one was cracked and neither one had any movement or sounds coming from them, but I figured I’d give them another day to try to hatch. Meanwhile, mama hen was being good with her babies and would take little bits of food from next to the nesting box and give it to them.

All of a sudden today (approximately 48 hours or so after the first one hatched) she is all kinds of freaked out. I saw her get off the nest and figured she was ready to leave the bad eggs and start raising the babies, but then she freaked out and went back in her box looking for her eggs and flinging straw everywhere with no regard for the new chicks, who were also getting flung everywhere. I gave her the one unbroken egg back and she sat on it for a while. Then the same thing happened 20 minutes later, she got off the nest for a minute, kind of gave some food to the new chicks, then went back in the nest and started stepping on everything and moving around with zero regard for the new babies. One of the babies has a small injury on the back of its neck but I’m not sure if that’s from Mama or from another of our chickens (they’ve mostly left the babies alone so I’m suspecting it came from Mama accidentally hurting it).

What should I do? Do I just need to take the babies and the bad egg away from her? Do I take the babies temporarily until she gets over it or just figure she’s not a good mama and raise them in a brooder? She was doing great with them the first 2 days, I’m not sure what changed or what I should do about it. Help!

 

[jillianjo]

Update: Mama keeps doing the same thing over and over. She gets off the nest, walks around for a minute, eats some food, growls and puffs up at anything that comes near her, and then goes back into the nest. Once there, she proceeds to kick and fling straw everywhere until she lays back down on the egg. Meanwhile the babies are still in there and keep getting stepped on by Mama. Sometimes one of them will follow her out of the nest (or get flung out of the nest when she’s trying to leave) and sometimes she’ll give them mouthfuls of food, but she doesn’t seem to be actively trying to get them to follow her out of the nest.

She seems weirdly torn like she can’t decide if she’s supposed to keep sitting on the egg (that almost certainly will never hatch) or raise the new babies, and I’m not sure what to do to help her.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I've never had a broody hen do exactly what you're describing but I've had both good broodies and bad broodies. Once they prove to be poor mothers I don't allow them to go broody again. I would definitely take the non-viable egg away so she can shift her focus but it's going to be up to you if you want to risk waiting to see if she'll snap out of it for her babies. As another last-ditch effort, you could keep the babies in a brooder for today, take her unviable eggs away and supervise her with the chicks after she calms down. Unfortunately, with my neurotic hen, she just wasn't a good mom.

 

[Sea Wolf]

Take the bad egg away. Possibly even remove the nesting material from the box for a while. She might also just be a bad mom.

 

[2 many chickens]

I would take them away. Now. Brood them yourself.
I had a broody that hatched 5 babies and refused to get up even after I took the rest of her eggs that were obviously rotten. She actually killed the last chicks that hatched. Pecked them in the heads even after it just hatched under her.

 

[centrarchid]

The freaking out part may indicate a problem not being considered. I remove dud eggs 48 hours after first pipped. By then first chicks need to get moving to eat and drink.