Broody explosion!

It's crazy!! A couple weeks ago we had some horrid little pecky hens who refused to leave the nest and I figured we should make use of them and throw some eggs under them. Well, my asthma has been really really bad so hubby has been in charge of overseeing eldest sons chicken chores.

I have so many ducks eggs that I didn't notice that we had no chicken eggs being added to the fridge. This morning I braved the hen house and holy broodies!! Those boys have not been collecting eggs and I counted 13 broodies (at least) set up all over the coop on nests of eggs! The 2 big nesting boxes are jammed full of growling puffed up feathers (hard to count) so others have picked spots around the coop floor on big nests of eggs. My first step over the doorway nearly had me stepping on a tiny ball of growling feathers! Son only has about 30 (maybe not quite) hens so nearly half are on nests right now, hens are I'm sure swapping eggs in those big nesting boxes and I have no idea how many eggs exactly are being sat on but it is ALOT by what I can see. Either we're going to have a whole lot of mutt babies and lots of soup this Fall or a whole lot of eggs to throw out when they all give up. We've only ever let one bantam mutt hen sit on cochin eggs we bought and she did great raising them. We usually take the little mean pecky broodies to visit with the extra roos and suddenly they give up on broodiness quick

One visit into coop was enough for me today so I took my phone and snapped a pic of one of the nesting boxes from outside the coop. 2 other hens didn't make it into the pic because I couldn't hold the access door up and get back far enough to include them
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Now for planned broodies I have Lucy goose on 4 growing eggs due this weekend YEAH!
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Then a turkey hen on 6 of her own eggs and a few runner eggs too... She's about 2 weeks in I think guess I should check on her egg progress
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And lastly finally a broody ducks! One of my 2 chocolate ducks (Cayuga x Khaki) sat 2 days ago and now yesterday one of my 2yr old cayuga daughters has joined her in broodiness. Instead of 2 nests they moved all the eggs into one nest, stole the hay out of the other nest as well and are sharing the nest. Unfortunately Cayuga was camera shy and was out of nest scolding me from behind They have runner eggs and a couple cayuga eggs and probably a couple mutt eggs snuck in there I like allowing the girls to hatch and raise their own babies. My momma cayuga raised babies so well and now her daughters doing the same
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Wow and I thought my 4 broodies an explosion made. You've got me beat by about 15!!

You are going to have a CUTENESS EXPLOSION when those babies arrive!! Lucky you.

Looks like a population explosion of cuteness coming up..

I am not going to lie to you. I saw the title of this post and all I could think was "I wish some of my stubborn broodies would explode already"! I have broody ducks and hens and hens and ducks and .... sometimes I hate spring I have 2 new scars on my hand and arm from one particularly protective (though albeit wishy washy) broody sussex hen. Bad girl!

I have to admit my 1st thoughts were not of all your broody ladies. But holy smack in the face you have alot happening

Well my foam monstosity bator hasn't had much luck this year at all and my brinsea eco 20 was worse. My sons brinsea mini went kaput the last day of his 4-H quail hatch and its usually what I hatch in with great success. So hatching this year all around disaster tried chicks, turks, ducks and geese and nothing wanted to hatch for me this year.

I've been waiting 2yrs for goslings (1st yr searching for male, 2nd yr male I found too young) so I REALLY hope she's successful with her 4 eggs. She hatched ducklings for me last year and did a fantastic job raising them I pet her and check on her everyday and she doesn't even bother hissing at me anymore. She's pretty smart and realizes I'm there to help so just fine with me hanging around and helping her with her ducklings she hatched last year. My Buff goose isn't as friendly but not at all as nasty as those chickens!
(Disclaimer I wouldn't let a stranger anywhere near the broody geese and even my kids which the girls know and are used to are not allowed near them when nesting as a precaution ONLY I bother them, their job is to protect and I won't give them a reason to be nasty)

I really prefer my ducks to hatch and raise their own so very glad the girls are sitting now. Last year they waited until the hottest time of year and when I tried to move them to a cooler safer area they gave up on me. The brown girl in the pic last year made a nest under a bushy tree in the big uncovered area of the pen with sticks etc and sat and sat and sat. We had crows, magpies and ravens stealing her eggs but she managed to get to the bills in the air cell on the last 2 eggs but our final try to fix the fence to protect her must have been just too much so she stayed off her nest and we found 2 pipped but dead eggs So only my 2 geese raised ducklings last year

As for the chickens I'm not very happy with those boys for letting it happen. They're both in the doghouse right now. They thought well if a dzn eggs under hens was ok well more would be even better!!! I really don't know how successful hatching will be with them all piled in the 2 nesting boxes like that but some of the others may do ok on the single nests around the coop. A couple pullets may get to become layers in his coop but the rest will become appetizers LOL Those nasty pecky chickens are for my hubby and son to lose limbs to!! They also need to do some quick building to put all those broodys somewhere so we can collect eggs from the rest of the hens before they join the broody party

Oh and turkey has 6 eggs under her but she's only a week into sitting so we'll see how she does but hubby is already plotting all the turkey dinners She's so mellow I can lift her and check under her and she doesn't do anything at all and then I plop her back on the nest

Funny how geese and turkeys seem to have bad reps for nastiness but I find them to be the easiest to work with even when broody. Those chickens however are horrible!

Ok well Turkey hen is WORST broody ever! Last night I took away her nest I was so grumpy