I have had chickens for about 10 years now and have never had a hen to go broody. I understood that RIR's had that instinct bred out of them. I have in the past several years obtained several different other breeds and some of them are supposed to be good setters. Here's my question: How do they have a chance to become broody if the eggs are collected everyday? Should I leave a few eggs in a nest for a few days? I would appreciate any advice as obviously I have extremely limited experience w/broody hens. How do you tell if one is even thinking about setting? Please help! Thank you

I just got through dealing with my first ever broody hen. I had put golf balls in the nest boxes some time back, to train the young pullets that the nest boxes were for laying and not sleeping/pooping. Worked like a charm. I never removed them. I don't know if that contributed to my hen going broody or not since although I collected eggs daily, she had a few golf balls to sit on round the clock. They say you can't really "force" one to go broody. But I am wondering if those that show the signs of potential could be encouraged to do it by being left with some eggs.

I have several that show the signs of potential broodiness like sitting on the nest for hours instead of minutes, flaring up their feathers and fussing at me if I try to reach in to get eggs out from under, some even peck at me. Some really "nest" in there and throw straw over their backs. Those are the sort of things that are signs. If you have any that do things like that, you might try separating one into some private quarters and letting her lay for a few days. You could collect eggs from all your other hens and then replace what she lays with the ones you want to hatch if she decides to go for it. You would know because eventually she won't get off that nest but once a day or so. Mine seemed to be in a trance-like state. It was fascinating. And we had a successful hatch of 8 eggs.

Susie

Chickens will go broody even if you collect the eggs everyday. I used to use plastic Easter eggs filled with sand to "induce" broody behavior. I don't know if they went broody any faster than they would have if you don't put the seed eggs in, but you usually get one or two hens to go broody when you do it.

Broodiness seems to be a threshhold trait. This just means that birds have to exceed some barrier threshold before they will go broody. They usually have to be laying. A hen that isn't laying never went broody for me, but I bet somewhere it has happened. Most hens have to have the hormones they have when they are laying to get them set to go broody. Research has shown that environmental cues seem to lower the threshold and the facilitate the birds to go broody. A sheltered nest site is good, lower light intensity, the sound of chicks peeping, seeing baby chicks, and finding that your nest is full of eggs. They have even got Leghorn males to go broody exposing them to newly hatched chicks.

The best way to inhibit gamebirds from going broody is to remove the eggs everyday. This tends to work for chickens, but if you have enough chickens a broody will tend to find an egg to sit on somewhere.

We have messed up the brooding instinct quite a bit. You will find broodies that exhibit the entire range of different behaviors. I've had some birds that continued to lay, but gathered eggs and sat on them.

The normal behavior is that the hen will lay a clutch of eggs. She will not set on the nest until she lays the last egg, so that all the eggs hatch about the same time. Once she has laid enough eggs she settles down on the nest and hits her trance state. Every 15 minutes or so she will reach underneath herself and ruffle through the eggs turning a few of them at a time and adjusting their position in the nest so that all the eggs aren't in the same place all the time. She will come off the nest once a day for around 10-15 minutes to eat drink and eliminate waste. Around day 18 of incubation she stops turning the eggs and just sits there and usually will not get off the nest until her chicks have hatched. She will usually hold on the nest around 24 hours after the last chick hatches. If a hatch drags you can have problems with the first chicks hatching leaving the nest. For some reason the hen doesn't seem to recognize her own chicks and will kill these chicks if they try to come back into the nest. Some people put the chicks back under her at night, but I used to just raise them myself.

This is the main reason that you should set all the eggs you want a hen to hatch under her at the same time. I would collect the eggs that I wanted to hatch and store them as I normally do for incubation (55 to 60 degrees F let them come up to room temp before puting them under the hen as a kindness) and I have the hen sitting on the plastic eggs or some eggs that I don't care about. You remove the dummy eggs and replace them with the eggs that you want to hatch and you don't have as much problems with dragging hatches. The problem that most people have around on this group is that other hens will keep laying eggs in the broodies nest. You should mark all hatching eggs (I'd make a circle around them with a Sharpie) and remove any fresh eggs each day so the hen won't be overwelmed with eggs to incubate and you won't have chicks hatching for a week before the hen is forced off the nest. Pencil can rub off so a marking pen is the best. Marking the eggs doesn't seem to bother the mother. Heck, they will try and hatch a baseball.

Expect some problems. First time moms and the fact that we have messed up the brooding instinct will cause you some problems. You will have hens that do all sorts of dumb things like go and sit on the wrong nest, or cavort around the yard for several hours before they remember that they have eggs to sit on. If this happens don't give up, unless the screw ups are chronic the eggs just seem to hatch a little late. Candling the eggs will tell you when to give up.

Thank you Susie and Rokimoto for taking the time for such wonderful and detailed responses! You both have helped me so much. I can't wait to get home and just observe for signs of broodiness. I've had wooden and ceramic eggs in the nests forever for other reasons and now I'm so glad I did. Thankyou again!