The Broody Hen

In one of the nesting boxes in the barn, there is a Black Star hen that is broody.  A hen that is broody simply means that she wants to be a momma.  Most hens will lay their eggs, sing a little song, and then it's up and off the nest and out to the pasture to do normal chicken things like scratching in the dirt, chasing frogs and bugs, and taking dust baths.  Not a broody hen.  A broody hen wants to sit on her eggs and hatch them.  She fluffs her feathers up and makes mean noises when you come around. If you try to lift her up to remove the eggs underneath her, she'll peck you with her beak.

Benjamin's job is to gather the eggs each day.  He was tired of getting pecked and asked if we could let the broody hen sit on and hopefully hatch her eggs.  I said sure.  She has four eggs underneath her and I had Benjamin mark the four eggs with a pencil.  He removes any new eggs that may be laid in her nesting box while she's off her nest each day and leaves the existing four eggs for the broody hen to incubate.

The broody hen is very dedicated to the task at hand.  She only gets up off her nest for very brief periods each day to get food and water.  Then she quickly returns, re-positions her eggs and sits back down on them.  Here is a photo of her all fluffed up and giving me the evil eye!:

The Broody Hen

A chicken egg takes exactly 21 days to incubate.  That means that on approximately September 8th we may have some baby chicks hatching and then maybe not. When it is really warm (which it is) sometimes the chicks develop a little faster and may hatch in 19 days.  There's always the possibility that the eggs aren't fertilized. The proper ratio is 1 rooster for every 10 hens in the flock.  We have enough roosters, but you just never know.  We'll keep our eyes open and ears listening for the first signs of little chicks in the barn.