Drama in the Chicken Coop

Our efforts last month to get a hen to go broody met without much success. Buff Yellow, would love to get on the nest full of eggs and sit for hours. About 4 hours. Then she had enough and went about the rest of her day. A few times one of the golden wyandottes would also sit on the eggs for several hours, but nothing serious. By the early part of October, we decided maybe it would be too cold when the eggs hatched, so quit leaving eggs in the nest boxes. Except for the half dozen ceramic, fake eggs left scattered in some of the nest boxes.

A couple days ago, I was freshening up the nest boxes with new bedding and placed all the fake eggs in one of the nest boxes after putting in the new material. And promptly forgot about them while I went about cleaning the rest of the boxes.

Yesterday a new broody hen sat on the fake eggs along with 4 real ones the hens and laid, including perhaps, one of her own. So I took out the fake eggs out from under her, and gave her 4 more brown eggs and two blue eggs. The blue ones were laid earlier this week. Any idea how much a broody hen does not like the idea of messing with her eggs?

The broody one, a Buff Orpington, sat all night on the nest, not going to roost as usual.

This morning all was well…for a while. Several hens attempted to get in the nest with the broody hen. Then the Barred Rock hen, Barred Hunter, pushed broody hen out of her nest box and off the eggs she had sat on for about 24 hours. The Barred Rock laid her egg along with the 10 already there, then abandoned the nest.

Meanwhile the broody one, went out for a dust bath and a stretch.

The Buff Orpington even while playing in the dirt stayed all puffed up in her broody mode.

A little while later, the broody one reclaimed her nest, now sitting on 11 eggs. And for now, all is quiet one again in the chicken coop.