Spring is here! Have any of your laying hens gone broody? Broody means that they are going to stay on their nests and hatch out some chicks. Hope you have a rooster as it is the one time he’s an essential part of the equation. Your hen needs some fertilized eggs. Did you know that if your rooster were to succumb to a predator that your hens would be able to continue to produce fertile eggs for up to a month? It is because the hen has sperm nest areas located in her oviduct that collects and stores semen for later fertilization of eggs. The more I learn about poultry, the more impressed I am with the species.

The first thing you need to do when a hen goes broody is to determine if she is serious. This is especially true to a young hen who has never shown the trait before going broody. Isolate her and give her a nest with some false eggs or golf balls and see if she stays put. If she does, then you can give her some real eggs to set without wasting any eggs.

Your hen is showing all the classic signs when she has a glazed fixed expression. She is not getting off the nest and makes a loud commotion when you try to remove her from the nest. Another sign is getting her hackles up (the feathers on her back and neck stand straight up). Now it’s time to set up a nesting area.

I have just gone out to check on my broody hen, “Mommy,” a hen who loves to brood chicks. Since she has not been moved to the small coop I use for my broody hens, and she is setting on eggs in the nesting box, I found her sitting on the wrong nest! When she got off the nest for a drink, either another hen was in the box with her clutch of eggs, or she forgot where they were, but I found her on a different nest. On this cold day, if I hadn’t happened to go out and check, the entire clutch would have been ruined due to getting too cold, and all the developing babies would have perished! The eggs were still warm, so I moved her back and saved the brood.

Always isolate the broody hen. That way, you can provide the best nutrition for her and protection from the rest of your flock. I use a small coop that I can move into my larger coop so that the other birds will not see Mommy as an interloper when I am ready to return her to the flock.

I make sure that my broody hen is healthy enough to withstand the rigors of the brood. A broody hen will only get off the nest once a day to drink, eat a little and relieve herself. If you start with a hen who is too thin or in poor health, she may starve to death while hatching her eggs. I had a Leghorn who went broody and did a great job with her first clutch. A month later, she went broody again, and I did not realize that you should not allow such a thin chicken to go broody again since she had not recovered any weight from the first brood. She hatched her eggs, but shortly after that, she died of the stress of brooding a second clutch too quickly. I still feel awful about her death. If I had been more knowledgeable, my Leghorn would still be alive. So please make sure your hen is plump enough before she starts brooding. Feed her scratch and hard-boiled eggs. Since she is not laying eggs, the scratch will give her more calories, and the eggs will give her protein.

Move your hen at night after you set up a nesting coop. I line half of mine with cardboard and straw and give her a 4 to 6 inches high cardboard box filled with pine shavings into which I have placed the eggs that she will hatch. Always go with too few rather than too many eggs to set under your hen. If too many, they will get too cold and not develop, and since the hen turns the eggs frequently, all the eggs will be moved to the outer cold area and perish. Go with fewer live chicks than all rotten eggs.

Stay with your hen after you move her to see if she will calm down or stay upset and not sit on the new nest. If she is genuinely broody, she will settle down and sit on the nest.

Now all you need is to give her fresh water and food each day, clean out her droppings (which will really stink), and wait for the baby chicks! Don’t forget to candle after the first week.

Hope this was helpful. Be blessed!