Goldie, the broody hen

Goldie is a big, buff orpington hen.  When she runs it's like a Wallace & Gromitt character.  Her genetics that give her those wide hips and fluffy backside, are also why she's become broody.  Broody is when a hen just sits, and sits on eggs waiting for them to hatch.  This started about 4 days ago.  She even slept in the nest box.  I called my chicken mentor, Allen Goodwin, and asked some questions about this process.  I decided it would be fun to hatch some chicks the old fashioned way, broody hen.  I don't have, nor want a rooster, so Allen donated fertile eggs for my cause and said I could bring him the roos and he would make soup, er take them from me, since we live in city limits.

First, Goldie had to be moved from the nest box into her own space.  If I had left her in the next box several things could have happened.  First, she was causing a traffic jam for laying.  Second, when she left the nest box to eat or drink, she might get confused and sit on the wrong eggs, and let her eggs get chilled.  Third, when the babies hatch you don't want them to be raised off the ground so they wont fall.

The process takes 21 days, so 3 weeks from now we will see how many hatch.

Goldie sitting on 8 fertile eggs