Broody hen embroilments
The little red hen was settled down on the coop floor again, clearly broody, so I got busy. I made her a cardboard broody box that fits in a third of the Silkie coop, full of grass and supplied with food and water. There’s a slightly elevated but shallow next box that I’ll put her and the eggs in. There’s room for her to get off and eat.Egg rouletteWhat eggs to put under her? Hoping hard that I got a couple of eggs from the poor black hen, I chose six eggs to put under her, including two of the original three she was setting on, which I assume are her own, also which are possibly non-viable, if she was on them long enough to quicken. All are labelled with their possibilities. The likelihood is practically an algorithm, but there’s a chance of 1-3 from the black hen, 2-4 from the red hen, and 2-5 from the white hen. Overall there’s a good possibility of 4 chicks. If she hatches one chick, I’ll be thrilled.In the night I set her onto her clutch. Exciting! When I lifted her up I felt another egg under my fingertips in her belly feathers; I moved it with her. I’m not entirely sure now how many eggs are under her. In the morning she hadn’t budged. She’s deep in broody chicken trance, motionless and flattened out wide over her eggs. Yay! The end of August is late in the year but I think still ok. I wanted these Silkies for their broodiness, and now, they deliver!Oh no! In the afternoon I looked and she was settled down on the floor of her box in front of her food. No! I’ve read they can have a hard time finding the right nest to get back into- hence the isolation of the broody box. Not only that, but she’d brought some of the eggs over with her, leaving three behind. The three left were still warm, so I just lifted her with the eggs she was holding and put her back on the others through some mild protestation. Her belly was hot! It seemed bare, too, like her feathers were pulled out or else spread out, so her skin was directly on her eggs. Now I worry. Does she know better than I do what eggs she should be setting on, what eggs are viable? Should I not be adjusting her?After two days on all the eggs I come back to look at her in the afternoon and she’s back on the floor of her broody box, and this time she’s brought all but one egg with her. (H.W. is again heartily wishing for a chicken cam. “They have no hands!?”). Hmm, she doesn’t seem very good at this. Fine, she wants to stay there. I check the egg she left behind and it’s cool. Sadly, it’s marked as possibly one of the black hens. I don’t remove it then for some reason, thinking I’ll wait until the evening to further disturb her- I have to feed and water her in the night anyways. At night I go to minister to her and she’s collected that last egg out of the nest and put it under her!! Good possibility now that three eggs have been killed by cooling, but she’s in charge, and I’m trying not to meddle.
The white hen has simultaneously gone broody, bedding down in the floor of the main coop where the red hen did at first. Her I’m going to leave completely to her own devices. I don’t know how many eggs she’s on, but they must all be her own. There’s only the two hens now so they don’t need another separate compartment. I caught the cock sitting in a nesting box, presumably watching over his broody hens, solving the mystery of who’s been leaving feathers in the nesting boxes. The hens don’t use them, always laying on the coop floor.The rooster has been crowing a great deal more, and even going on adventures. H.W. thinks because he’s awfully bored now. There’s nothing for him to do with two hens setting. He even ventured around the field, got in a fight with the big rooster, lost and retreated, got lost, hid under the house, and H.W. had to fish him out and catch him to return him to his domain, knowing I wouldn’t take it well if I came home and another Silkie was lost due to negligence. He figured Snowball had nothing to take care of on the home front so he came across the field to “regulate” over there.