A broody hen decided it really was time to sit on eggs and hatch out some babies. As an Easter Egger / Rhode Island Red cross I wasn't expecting her to commit to sitting for the entire process, about 30 days. I was interested to see if we could hatch some eggs naturally so after a few weeks I swapped out our infertile eggs with 4 fertile eggs. I hadn't moved her from the regular coop so the other ladies were still laying around her. Each day we we would collect eggs from her, careful to leave the ones marked with a pink heart as untouched as possible. After about 10 days I candled them, looking for a large mass to indicate the embryo was indeed growing. All looked good and for the next 2 weeks she sat diligently on her clutch of eggs.
As the 21 day mark approached we noticed one egg had completely disappeared. With no signs of intrusion or stress in the birds I attribute it to 1 of 2 things:
- During the commotion of other hens laying in the nest it was cracked. Being good stewards of their nest either the mamma hen, another hen or a combination cleaned up the embryo and broken pieces.
- The mamma hen sensed the egg was no longer viable, at which point she will crack the egg herself and dispose of the shell and embryo. I do not have scientific evidence of this, but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to support the notion of this behavior.
Over the next few days the 3 eggs continued to dwindle away. We found one kicked out of the nest, but not broken or otherwise disturbed. I was concerned it could have been a mistake so I put it back under her. We didn't see it kicked out again. One morning I found a trail of ants into the nest; they were working their way through the goop of the open egg. The chick was nowhere to be found. The remaining 2 eggs disappeared as well. I candled all eggs coming out of the nest terrified of cracking a dead chick into the frying pan. After another week I found flattened and mostly skeletal remains of 2 chicks, outside of the nest. Operation Natural Hatch had failed.
She remained committed to sitting on the nest. For those who have never encountered a broody hen, there is no mistaken their intent to nest and hatch their eggs. When you come near them they fluff up and make a funny intimidating growl. These angry footballs can indeed peck and bite, but our girl is used to us handling her and so we only got amusing grunts. It's a taxing process, as the hen spends almost her entire day on the nest, forgoing food and water to control the temperature and humidity of her nest. Instead of giving her another clutch of eggs and hoping she would survive another incubation we decided to proceed onto Operation Adoption.
Chick adoption is exactly as it sounds, you give very recently hatched chicks to a broody hen and she accepts them as her own. My research indicated it tended to be a success with adherence to one practice the key to said success: placing the chicks at night. At night chickens are unable to see and become very calm, making it possible for the bait and switch. We had to wait a week for our feed store to get in day old chicks, but I went straight away and bought a dozen. It had also been suggested that we move her, so around 9pm we carried her from the nest into the greenhouse. We had a black tub set up for her, and once she was in we put the chicks in behind her. And, she wanted none of it. She screamed and pecked the chicks. They wanted to snuggle under her and go to sleep, but she wanted them away from her. She calmed once they hid around her enough to not be seen and pecked. I was back out with them before the sun rose, to find she still wanted nothing to do with them and pecked them if they came too close. Back to the nest she went, but the chicks stayed in the tub. She calmed immediately upon returning to the nest. We really didn't want to raise the chicks ourselves and decided to give it one more try, but this time I would keep her in the nest.
9pm came around again, and we tucked 12 fuzzy, little butts behind her. This time she barely squawked! We watched for a few minutes and then retreated as they found spots behind her to sleep. Again, I was up and in the coop before dawn, but this time she was a much different scene. As the sun rose she was chirping to the chicks and showing them the food and water. I closed off the nest so the other birds couldn't get in, but ended up moving the layers to the greenhouse. Mamma didn't like the nest being closed off, and very soon they were running around on the ground, looking for bugs and scratching the dirt. They run all over her and sleep tucked safely within her feathers. My favorite is when they burrow in her wing and all you see is a face poking out of her wing.
The ducks and turkeys are in the same enclosure, but it's 50' x 50' and the ducks spend most of their time in the pond so, for now, all is well. In the first few days we went back and got a few more, bringing our total up to 16. We had purchased a mixture of Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, Silver Laced Wyandottes, and Golden Laced Wyandottes. In our last flock the Wyandottes were a slightly more aggressive bird, but given the healthy population of hawks and owls I welcome their added strength and vigilance. I worried that the chicks would be standoffish with us because they wouldn't be handled as much as past clocks, but that hasn't become an issue. While they do seem to be more skittish, they eat from our hands and don't mind our presence, especially when we come bearing watermelon!
We lost 6 of them in the first week and a half from, I suspect, an opossum. A critter had dug into the coop during the night and 6 had simply disappeared. Around the same time our big, goofy Max caught himself one, and left him near the door of the enclosure. Just the other day we found ourselves down to 9 chicks when one founds its way to edge of the pond and fell in. I don't know how long she was in the pond, but the rest of the flock wasn't phased when I came out and found her. I buried in the garden because the best way I know to honor her is by recycling her into our soil to nourish the next generation of crops. 
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