Broody Brahma hatching eggs

[ssferret]

My Brahmas are 2 years old and this is only my third hen to become broody. This time I thought I would let her hatch them herself hoping not all her motherly behaviors were bred out especially since she's from a hatchery.

Anyway, it was a few days after she started incubatint when we finally saw how many eggs there were. My eyes almost popped out when we counted around 10 EGGS! We have 12 hens and I guess my husband hadn't gathered eggs for a couple of days and that nest box must be a definite favorite of theirs.

I know 10 eggs are definitely too, too many for her. Also this would be her very first time at hatching and who knows how it will go. Knowing all that how many eggs would she possibly be able to handle? I don't want to remove eggs and still leave her with to many or too few because I don't know any better.

I also need to know how to make sure my hen will stay healthy. A year ago one one of my favorite hens got broody that I didn't realize wasn't eating. I let her feathers full me. I lost her about a week after she stopped being broody. I'm so afraid of losing this one too.

Now for the me-overly-thinking question. Has anyone tried to incubate eggs after a hen started the incubation cycle or is that even feasible?

Thanks all!

 

[Yanisay]

My Brahmas are 2 years old and this is only my third hen to become broody. This time I thought I would let her hatch them herself hoping not all her motherly behaviors were bred out especially since she's from a hatchery.

Anyway, it was a few days after she started incubatint when we finally saw how many eggs there were. My eyes almost popped out when we counted around 10 EGGS! We have 12 hens and I guess my husband hadn't gathered eggs for a couple of days and that nest box must be a definite favorite of theirs.

I know 10 eggs are definitely too, too many for her. Also this would be her very first time at hatching and who knows how it will go. Knowing all that how many eggs would she possibly be able to handle? I don't want to remove eggs and still leave her with to many or too few because I don't know any better.

I also need to know how to make sure my hen will stay healthy. A year ago one one of my favorite hens got broody that I didn't realize wasn't eating. I let her feathers full me. I lost her about a week after she stopped being broody. I'm so afraid of losing this one too.

Now for the me-overly-thinking question. Has anyone tried to incubate eggs after a hen started the incubation cycle or is that even feasible?

Thanks all!

Make sure she has food and water at all time(broody chickens wake up once in 2 days to eat and drink,they usually do that in the dark where you can’t see them)I have a good old method just by touching their stomachs I can feel if it has food in it or not(but that might be hard since shes broody and will probably attack you if you do that)and I’m not sure this method works completly or not because this is not a medical or scientific way to test if she is eating or not so make sure to do further investigation.

 

[JubileeFarmer]

Your hen should be fine with 10 eggs. My BLRW sat on 12 eggs last spring and they all developed. Only 10 hatched because one got broken and another died before hatching but a Brahma is larger than a BLRW so she can easily handle 10 eggs.

One concern is whether your other hens were depositing eggs in her nest after she started brooding. If that's the case you could end up with eggs at different stages of development, in which case she could abandon the later eggs when she needs to get up to take care of the early hatchers.

 

[ssferret]

Your hen should be fine with 10 eggs. My BLRW sat on 12 eggs last spring and they all developed. Only 10 hatched because one got broken and another died before hatching but a Brahma is larger than a BLRW so she can easily handle 10 eggs.

One concern is whether your other hens were depositing eggs in her nest after she started brooding. If that's the case you could end up with eggs at different stages of development, in which case she could abandon the later eggs when she needs to get up to take care of the early hatchers.

Thank you so much. Now I don't need to remove eggs. I'll check today to make sure no one has laid more eggs in that nest box. I'm hoping she'll won't let anyone in there.

 

[JubileeFarmer]

Thank you so much. Now I don't need to remove eggs. I'll check today to make sure no one has laid more eggs in that nest box. I'm hoping she'll won't let anyone in there.

You should mark the eggs currently under her so that you know which ones they are. That will make removing additional eggs easier. I had two broodies last year and they both let other hens lay in their boxes so I had to check daily and remove the extra eggs.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I consider it very important to mark the eggs so you know which belong and check under her daily after the others have laid for the day to remove eggs that don't belong. Life is so much simpler if you do that.

A year ago one one of my favorite hens got broody that I didn't realize wasn't eating. I let her feathers full me. I lost her about a week after she stopped being broody. I'm so afraid of losing this one too.

I don't know what happened to that hen but that really sounds strange. It just doesn't sound right unless there is more to the story. Hens have been going broody since there were chickens. It is not a death sentence.

Broody hens can be susceptible to roost mites. These mites come out in the dark to feed on their blood so you need to check for them after dark. They are attracted to the vent area because of the moisture so check with a flashlight in the vent area. They will run away from the light so don't be too slow.

Before a hen even starts laying eggs she adds excess fat. I've butchered enough pullets, hens, cockerels, and roosters to see that the difference in fat is dramatic. That fat is what a broody hen mostly lives off of when she is broody. That way she can take care of her eggs instead of having to be out finding food. That is nature's way of taking care of them so they can reproduce. A hen will lose weight while she is broody but that is fat put there for that purpose.

A broody hen should regularly leave her nest to eat and drink a bit, poop, and maybe take a dust bath. I've witnessed a hen that came off her nest for 15 minutes early every morning, then went back on her nest for the rest of the day. I had a hen that came off of her nest twice a day and spent more than an hour off each time. Both had great hatches. I've had hens that I never saw off of the nest but I know they were coming off because they were not pooping in their nest. Since the other hens are laying in her nest it sounds like you don't have her locked up where she cannot come off.

If you wish when you check her daily for new eggs you can set her on the coop floor. She should just squat there for a short while, then do one of two things. She may go eat and drink before she returns to her nest or she may just return to the nest. Most of mine grab a bite to eat before they go back to the nest.

 

[ssferret]

The reason I thought she might have starved herself is that there were threads here that talked about it happening sometimes so now I'm confused.

Thank you and @JubileeFarmer very much for suggesting I mark her eggs. I'm going to go ahead and do that.

 

[ssferret]

When went down to mark the eggs I saw that my hen wasn't sitting on the eggs. She wasn't even near the nest box. I felt a few and they were cold. I swear! She was broody! She sat on the eggs without moving. She would growl at me and try to peck my hand when I got to close. But now she could care less. Well, I guess this thread is moot now.

 

[JubileeFarmer]

When went down to mark the eggs I saw that my hen wasn't sitting on the eggs. She wasn't even near the nest box. I felt a few and they were cold. I swear! She was broody! She sat on the eggs without moving. She would growl at me and try to peck my hand when I got to close. But now she could care less. Well, I guess this thread is moot now.

The reason my hen sat on 12 eggs last spring is because I thought I had two broodies and was planning to put 6 eggs under each. The morning after I placed the eggs one of them left her nest and didn't come back so the other one got all 12 eggs. It happens sometimes.

That said, the one that stayed broody did leave the nest sometimes for long enough for the eggs to get cool, or went back to the wrong nest and had to be moved back to the correct nest, by which time the eggs were cool. They all developed anyway. If your not sure how long she was off the nest you might want to wait a while and see if she goes back before you give up on her.

 

[Mrs. K]

I bet she goes serious in the next few days. I don't know how many times this has happened to me, their broody - I set eggs, they're not broody, loss of eggs, oh NOW she is really broody.

Keep eggs on the counter for the next week. Just in case!