Rural/Farm Life

There will be no question about it.
She will remain on the eggs in an near trance when all the other hens
have left for their daily foraging.

Most modern breeds have had most of the Broodiness bred out of them.
It IS cool to have your flock self propagate,
but it comes with some negatives.
It can be contagious, seriously curtail egg production, and disrupt the harmony in the hen house.
For some reason, our hens prefer to lay their eggs in one particular nesting box, though many are available.
They will line up for that box, and bitch at each other to Hurry UP!
If you get a Broody Hen that wants to keep that box,
the other girls complain...loudly.

We got some Wellsummers a couple of years ago, and they will go broody and hatch their own chicks.
We built a smaller Isolation Coop alongside the regular coop so that we could remove broody hens,
and give them a safe place to hatch out their chicks.
We can't let the young chicks Free Range because they are Hawk Bait,
and they are just Better Off not having to mix with the Big Girls and compete for food until they get some size.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=268x4762

Out of the 6 eggs that hatched last year,
5 were Roosters ,
and you can't give away a rooster around here,
you can't keep that many roosters,
and you can't just Set them Free.