Broody hen

One of Mariposa's hens, Kelly, has become broody.  Cheekie's not old enough to have opportunity to produce fertile eggs yet, so we were quite surprised.  Here she sits, on the eggs the other hens had laid and the fake eggs, most of the day.  We tried moving her and she'd happily go out to eat and drink, but then she'd be right back in there again.

Kelly, quite content to sit.

I've never dealt with a broody hen before, so I had to start asking some questions.  Then a friend suggested getting some fertile eggs to put under her, but where do I get those?  Well, off I googled 'fertile eggs' and found this site:

http://www.chooknet.com.au/  Ah ... success, there's a farm only a 1/2 hour drive from us, so we phoned the lady and had an impromptu excursion.

We were shown the incubator where eggs are hatched, and those that held the youngest chicks.  In other large boxes she had groups of chicks either 3 or 6 weeks old.

Many breeds all in together.

Rhode Island Reds, with their lovely chocolate brown feathers and a female turkey.

We saw beautiful quail eggs, plus many varieties of chickens, most of which I wouldn't be able to tell you the names. We did see an Isa Brown rooster though that confirmed our thoughts on Cheekie!  To sex a chick, you really need to see a number of a like breed together.  The males are larger, sometimes having a small comb where females don't, but then other breeds both male and female have small combs whilst young.  It's easy to get it wrong, so 'wait and see' is usually the best option.

Now I also know a small number of other facts about fertile eggs. A fertile egg can remain quite viable, at room temperature, for a number of days. They are also quite transportable, but I was told to let them sit quietly on the kitchen bench once we got home, as the elastic part called the chalazae between the yolk and white can become stressed with the movement.  If put under the hen straight away, there is a risk that the warmth may cause this to break and then the embryo dies.

picture taken from here

Here's what we now have, a mixed dozen fertile eggs.  The friend who advised about getting fertile eggs was looking to purchase some Light Sussex pullets, so we took 5 of those and the rest of them are Black Australorps.  One of these is a special 'blue' Black Australorp (marked B/BA) which has been specially bred.

We placed these under Kelly just before sunset on December 1st.  She's accepted them all and is quite content.  The other hens have been denied access to this laying box, so we're back to using the older lawn mower catchers and that's working fine.

We were told they take exactly 21 days to hatch, so we've marked the 21st/22nd as days to stay home and watch.  We're all quite excited and have marked the date on the calender .. we'll have Summer Solstice chicks!!!