Is there any way to encourage my hen to brood?

[Pearlescent]

Hi! Was just wondering if I could encourage my hen to brood somehow. I have two Turkey hens (going to add more later this year), my 8 month old one is currently 14 days into brooding, but her mother, who hatched poults last year, hasn’t started yet. Here’s the thing, she has a nest filled with 13 of her own eggs (I stopped collecting after the 1st one started brooding.) and is still laying daily. However, she covers up the nest with bedding Everytime she lays an egg, and is quite protective of the nest when she’s laying.

This is not behavior I have noticed her doing when she doesn’t intend on brooding, but there’s already the maximum amount of eggs she can cover (13) so I’ll need to start collecting eggs soon. All of these are 100% fertile, as she’s bred multiple times in the last 2 months, but she’s recently lost interest in breeding. Anyways, I’d just love a 2nd broody as a fail safe, in case the first timer abandons hers, or really if anything goes wrong. The biggest catch I can think of, is that she brooded in July last year, because I didn’t have a tom up until June. Maybe she wants to brood in the summer again? I will be doing too much this summer to deal with a broody, so I wouldn’t allow her to brood then.

if there’s no way I can convince her, so be it.

Please and thank you

 

[R2elk]

Hi! Was just wondering if I could encourage my hen to brood somehow. I have two Turkey hens (going to add more later this year), my 8 month old one is currently 14 days into brooding, but her mother, who hatched poults last year, hasn’t started yet. Here’s the thing, she has a nest filled with 13 of her own eggs (I stopped collecting after the 1st one started brooding.) and is still laying daily. However, she covers up the nest with bedding Everytime she lays an egg, and is quite protective of the nest when she’s laying.

This is not behavior I have noticed her doing when she doesn’t intend on brooding, but there’s already the maximum amount of eggs she can cover (13) so I’ll need to start collecting eggs soon. All of these are 100% fertile, as she’s bred multiple times in the last 2 months, but she’s recently lost interest in breeding. Anyways, I’d just love a 2nd broody as a fail safe, in case the first timer abandons hers, or really if anything goes wrong. The biggest catch I can think of, is that she brooded in July last year, because I didn’t have a tom up until June. Maybe she wants to brood in the summer again? I will be doing too much this summer to deal with a broody, so I wouldn’t allow her to brood then.

if there’s no way I can convince her, so be it.

Please and thank you

Birds be birds. They go broody on their time schedule, not ours.

I have had hens wait until they have at least 20 eggs in their nest before going broody. Others have gone broody on a single fake egg.

 

[Pearlescent]

Birds be birds. They go broody on their time schedule, not ours.

I have had hens wait until they have at least 20 eggs in their nest before going broody. Others have gone broody on a single fake egg.

I suspected that’d be the case.

They are such fascinating birds. I mostly hope she starts brooding soon because some of the eggs date back to 3 weeks ago, I just don’t remember which ones XD

 

[R2elk]

I suspected that’d be the case.

They are such fascinating birds. I mostly hope she starts brooding soon because some of the eggs date back to 3 weeks ago, I just don’t remember which ones XD

Birds, turkeys in particular get away with things that would be disastrous for us if we tried it with an incubator.

 

[Molpet]

I suspected that’d be the case.

They are such fascinating birds. I mostly hope she starts brooding soon because some of the eggs date back to 3 weeks ago, I just don’t remember which ones XD

I date the eggs for this reason.
I have 3 that are broody and 7 that aren't. First one to go broody this year was the oldest and last to start laying. She's due around the 1st
So far mine have always gone broody