I am a young boy and have 3 brown leghorn hens one rose comb leghorn, and one brown leghorn rooster. I would like one of my hens to set on eggs and hatch them out, how do I get one to do this??? Thanks for the help
Sir
Get the book "A Guide to Better Hatching" by Janet Stromberg. I followed all the direction there except I never sprayed the eggs with water after the 16th day, even in Utah, and fed the broody hens only grit and scratch grain while they were setting. The hens would hatch nearly 100% of the eggs while I was only hatching around 85% using the same matings in the incubator.
By Rexulmer on Monday, June 14, 1999 - 08:53 pm:
What I've read goes something like this:
The hens, if they are going to become broody, will do so with the change in daylength, mainly from winter to spring. The hen will have a change in horomones and she will get in the mood to set.
Some breeds are more likely to set than some others, because they have been selectively bred to be, or NOT BE broody.
Leghorns, especially white ones, have been bred NOT TO BE broody. But, I have seen leghorns become broody. I do not know if brown leghorns will become broody more often then whites or not.
I wish you well.
Rex
By Rokimoto on Monday, September 11, 2000 - 02:40 pm:
You can get birds to go broody even in the winter time if you can put them under at least 14 hours of artificial light a day, and provide them with a suitable secluded nest area.
The birds have to be laying to go broody (It's probably hormones). Once they go broody they stop laying. Leghorns are probably the worst breed to try and set eggs under. I have had very good luck with Show quality bantam Rocks. I also got some mongrel Ameruacanas from Murray McMurray to go broody. I have heard that Silkies are the best mothers.
You can induce broodiness by supplying environmental stimulation. For bantams I would separate the hen that I wanted to go broody into an isolated cage with a nest box. I'd put some eggs in the nest (you can circle the "seed" eggs with a felt pen so that you can continue to collect the fresh eggs that she may lay in the nest.). Once the hen goes broody I'd replace the "seed" eggs with the ones that I wanted incubated and let her set on them.
To get the Ameruacanas to set all I had to do was build a three sided enclosure in the coop with a nest box in it with some "seed" eggs. I guess this made the hen feel secure enough to set even with other chickens milling around. The seed eggs were actually just plastic easter eggs filled with sand. Someone told me that it would work and it did. The problem with having the nest box where other hens had access to it was that some would lay eggs in the nest even after the setting hen refused to get off the nest. Some of them seemed to prefer the floor box to the standard sheetmetal multiplex that we had. The only way around this problem was to mark the setting eggs with a felt pen and remove the new eggs every day.
I always removed the chicks at hatch. Other hens can be very brutal to another hens chicks. You should have plenty of time to remove the chicks because the hens would stay on the nest for at least a day after the first chick hatched. I would let the bantams raise their own chicks in isolated cages.