# She's gone and done it...



## zamora (May 26, 2015)

Of all the hens, she is one of the ones I would have thought to be less likely to do so but she proved me wrong. She's broody. I'm not sure how many eggs she has under her but there are definitely quite a few.

I was hoping that this wouldn't happen for a while but now that it has, we are going to have to enlarge the chicken coop. There is just enough room for the ones we have without adding more. Grrrrr.

Actually, I'm kind of excited about having little chicks to play with and watch grow up. Can you guys give me a quick lesson on what to expect and how to take care of them?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

What are you feeding everyone else? Chicks can't have the layer feed. 

You won't have to do much, she will do it all. That said, if she's got a pile of eggs under her you're going to have to remove some of them so that there are only those her body comes in to contact with. 

Watch your date, then check to make sure she's OK with the chicks hatching. Some seem to get confused and attack their first batch of chicks.


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## zamora (May 26, 2015)

Everyone else gets layer feed. I already knew that we will have to get chick starter for the chicks to eat. Keeping them out of the layer feed might be interesting. I'll have to put my thinking cap on for that one.

I really didn't know that these chickens were going to take up so much time! LOL, isn't everything that way? I sure am having a good time though.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Not everyone knows that about the feed. Some see cutey pies in the feed store and have nothing else. I should have known you would know that. My excuse is that I couldn't sleep last night and was up until 2 AM.  But it's there for any newbies to read and remember. 

That's the thing isn't it? The more time we want to spend with the birds the more we'll find to keep us working around them. My coops didn't need a complete clean out every month but they got it anyway. That was two solid days I spent with the birds with little else getting any attention. Of course there's the tweaking of pens. The picking them up to see if they need anything. Well, that one is actually necessary since many times that's the only way we know something might be wrong.

Oh, and mark the eggs you leave for her to brood if others are laying in the same spot. You might want to see if there is a way to isolate her so the others can't keep laying there.


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## zamora (May 26, 2015)

We checked the eggs last night, she is sitting on 5 eggs and not a one of them is hers. LOL. There are three from our RIR hen and two of the blue eggs from the newest girls. At least if the three RIR hatch, those chicks will be purebred. Not that it matters one whit to us.

They have been marked but the other hens have already started laying in another box. I don't know if the broody hen will come off the eggs for food and water or not so my husband put a water bowl and some feed where she can reach it. I think he loves them more than I do.

We are busy trying to get the chicken coop fixed to accommodate babies! It looks like they should hatch around the 26th give or take a day.

Thanks Robin for all your information! Throw it at me, I more than likely will need to know it.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

The main reason I quit using my incubator was it was so easy to let the hens do the raising and a lot less messy. There were very few losses letting the girls do the peep raising.


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## zamora (May 26, 2015)

robin416 said:


> The main reason I quit using my incubator was it was so easy to let the hens do the raising and a lot less messy. There were very few losses letting the girls do the peep raising.


Yeah, I learned the hard way about raising birds in the house several years ago when my husband came home from the local feed store with two "chickens". They weren't chickens, they were turkeys and had to live in the house for about three/four months until they were old enough and it was warm enough to put them outside.

NEVER AGAIN!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Yeh, I'd rather find excuses to be in the coop than in the house cleaning up all the feather dust.

At that age your little "chickens" must have been trying to fly all over the place.


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## zamora (May 26, 2015)

Yeah, it was a mess.

Yesterday when I got home, the broody hen was off the nest. I don't know how long she had been off but she stayed off about a half an hour and then went and settled back down.

You think the eggs are ok?

Of course I probably should mention that the temperature was over 100 degrees at that point in time. Ugh. Thank goodness for the misters.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Yep, since I'm going through the same temp thing the eggs are just fine. Even if it was only in the 90's and she stayed off that long they would be fine. A girl that will get off the nest for a good walk around, dust bath and eating/drinking is a good thing. It's a lot more healthy for her.

My Guinea girls would leave their nests for hours when the temps were that high and the keets still hatched.

It's also not uncommon for eggs to begin developing when the temps are that high. So, if you're eating the eggs and they're fertilized it would be a good idea to candle or break in a separate bowl if you couldn't collect them every day.


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## zamora (May 26, 2015)

Thanks for the information, I honestly didn't realize they could start forming in this heat, I thought they just fried. LOL It's certainly hot enough.

We collect every day, it's a routine to take the dogs for a walk, let the chickens out in their run, collect eggs, clean and replace water and feed chickens treats. It's a great way to unwind at the end of the day and I kind of like standing under the misters myself.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

It seems like it was only the past couple of years that people were amazed to find chicks hatching so early. Then after some back forth finding out that it was hotter than blue blazes outside. The hens would not be on the nest nearly long enough yet chicks were hatching days early. So, the obvious answer is that the eggs were self incubating.


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## zamora (May 26, 2015)

Update on the little Momma...

Sunday morning my husband went to feed the chickens and came back in to tell me to scratch off the countdown to hatching on the calendar. Seems like he found a rather large, content grey rat snake curled up in one of the nesting boxes. He ate every last egg. We were sick. Being that he was just doing what snakes do, he got relocated several miles away and won't return. We apologized to the poor hen that has been sitting on the eggs and working so hard for a couple of weeks.

We finished the roof on the lean-to we built that will be housing our feed and various and sundry items needed to maintain a healthy flock. While working we noticed that the little Momma was being visited by the other members of the flock, they were gifting her with more eggs to incubate. How sweet. She had been sitting there looking so very depressed until the first "gift" then she brightened up and started to go back into the 'broody state'.

All is well at the Chicken Ranch.......not exactly.

We left for a couple of hours to attend a family Birthday party and came home in a violent thunderstorm. The ladies had put themselves in the coop and we were not worried about them. We went inside to console the frightened poochies and wait out the storm.

A few hours later, close to dusk it lightened up enough that we could go close the coop up. My husband went into the coop to check on little Momma and found that she only had one egg under her. What? There were three when we left. There were none on the ground.

Ah HA....another large grey rat snake had found the bounty and helped herself. Back to the relocation area we went. Now we study snakes and know without a doubt these were two different animals. What are the odds that we find TWO in one day?

Re-starting the hatching countdown clock. Poor baby chicks.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

It sounds like you're going to have to do something about the snakes more serious than relocating. You need to try to find a way to keep them out of your coop. There is electrified poultry netting since you also can get in through the run. Or a what I'm using, electric fencing close to the ground, so far I haven't found any of them in my pen. Problem with the electric wire is that you have to check every day to make certain no weeds or shavings are coming in to contact with it.

I had a black snake get in to my Silkie coop one night. Mine was a solid building, I ended up driving myself nuts trying to find the entry. Turns out the door had just enough gap at the bottom to allow a snake in. I put a bar across the bottom and that stopped that.


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## zamora (May 26, 2015)

We have made a 'tentative date' with an electrician to run power to the coop. That way, we can power lights, fans and electric fencing. It's an expensive fix but needs to be done.

All in all, the snakes have just forced us to do what we needed to do in the first place and add power.


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