Chanty just went broody on 3 eggs... can I give her chicks?

So, my one of my Chanty hens decided to go broody on 3 eggs and has firmly planted herself upon the nest with great protest as of 2 days ago. My other broody, who'd set on 13, had a failed hatch and, after popping the eggs, I found most of them hard boiled. I don't care to lose another batch of eggs this. I was able to give my broody momma some chicks from a hatch 1 week prior with great success, however I don't know if I can do this so soon with my Chanty.

I don't want to break her of going broody, I'd like to be able to hatch out at least one batch a year by her broody behaviour. Is this one of those "just try it and see" things?

Thanks.

Sounds a bit soon to me, but every hen is different. Why don't you want to break her up? It shouldn't deter her from broodiness in the future.

Oh I can't comment, but others will for surely chime in. What I am not getting , is why was there eggs that were hard boiled? You need to more clearly define what you saw, I need to know, and you know me, that needy girl, needy to knowy. What happened? Describe better what you saw, this is kind of scarey....have a great day, CynthiaM.

Thanks IPF, I decided to let her set.

It was my understanding that discouraging her to set on eggs may prevent her from trying again in the future -- it's something I want to breed for, ultimately, so I'd like to let broodies be broody.

As for your question, Cynthia. During the whole magical disappearing egg fiasco I had here, I found a clutch of eggs of unknown age and marked them, stuffed them in the nesting box and waited to see if someone would go broody. Sure enough, Big Momma went and sat on them.

Anywho, 24 days later and she'd only hatched out 2 eggs/13 with one additional pipped who didn't make it. One of the babies she hatched she squished, however it looks as though it wasn't quite ready as it had a distended stomach which, I assume, prevented it from moving with the hen. So, I gave her some week old babies and pulled the eggs. I pop every egg that doesn't hatch to see what happened, and pop some of them did.

Some eggs exploded as soon as they got tapped. Yuck! What a smelly mess. At least half weren't fertile (maybe too old). The others that were fertile had the yolks inside them looking as though they had hard boiled. They had the veining, but that yolk, sure nuff, looked like it was fresh from under the hard white of a boiled egg. I'm assuming it was a heat issue, maybe incubated where they were sitting before I moved them (beside an, rusted propane heater)? But it's strange how only the ones with veining seemed to have it, the others were just a goopy yellow, smelly sticky mess.

Not sure, but weird.

I've never heard that breaking a hen up will put her off trying again - in my experience it seems almost the opposite, the sooner she's broken up, the sooner she'll go broody again.

I have one hen who has spent most of this season broody; she'll be broken up, wander around for a week, lay an egg or two, then set again. I won't let her set because, the first time I let her set,she killed two of her four chicks (I rescued the other two and gave them to another hen).

Most of my hens seem to be determinedly setters or non-setters, regardless of whether I let them indulge their preference.

Sweetened wrote:Thanks IPF, I decided to let her set.

It was my understanding that discouraging her to set on eggs may prevent her from trying again in the future -- it's something I want to breed for, ultimately, so I'd like to let broodies be broody.

This has definitely not been my experience Sweetened. My LF Wyandottes are constantly going broody and I break them every time and have broken my Marans and some bantams and they have gone back to being broody.

I think the bigger question is will the chicks be strong enough to survive this winter, hatching so late in the year, not being fully feathered out for 8 weeks after hatch and then not much meat on them till spring to have any reserves to draw from for warmth with the bitter cold. Gail Damerow says that chicks that are born in Spring have much more vigor and stronger chance of long term survival. Then there is the whole separating them for a few weeks after hatch for their own safety and having them on different feed from the older birds. But I think you know about the latter.

ChicoryFarm wrote:This has definitely not been my experience Sweetened. My LF Wyandottes are constantly going broody and I break them every time and have broken my Marans and some bantams and they have gone back to being broody.

I think the bigger question is will the chicks be strong enough to survive this winter, hatching so late in the year, not being fully feathered out for 8 weeks after hatch and then not much meat on them till spring to have any reserves to draw from for warmth with the bitter cold. Gail Damerow says that chicks that are born in Spring have much more vigor and stronger chance of long term survival. Then there is the whole separating them for a few weeks after hatch for their own safety and having them on different feed from the older birds. But I think you know about the latter.

Ahh well, lesson learned then. I thought I remembered reading it could discourage them permanently, maybe I misunderstood. I don't plan on doing late hatches again next year, this year is an all around learning experience, methinks, and I'll keep all this in mind.

I have them in separate breeding pens that are easy to run a heat lamp into if I need to this winter to keep them going and healthy.

Thanks for the heads up.