Let's talk broody hens...

Ok, so you might not know what that means. A “broody hen” is a hen that desperately wants to sit on and hatch eggs. And I mean DESPERATELY!. And right now, I have two of them.

One of my chickens has turned broody. She stopped laying and is stealing other hens eggs. When another chicken lays an egg, she rushes in, sit on it, and fiercely protects it. When I go to collect that egg, she hisses and pecks at me. And my turkey hen has turned broody. She lays an egg or steals chicken eggs, sits on them and also fiercely protects them. I’m a little afraid of her when she’s like this.

So, instead of fighting with nature which I find that I ALWAYS lose, I have decided to go along with it. I collected 5 of my beautiful blue eggs over a couple of days. I also collected 6 turkey eggs. While I could have left them in the coop, I decided to bring them in. I put them on the counter (not too hot, not too cold) and turned then twice daily.

Yesterday, I made those two broody hens very happy. I gave them eggs to sit on. In 21 day (for the chickens) and 28 days (for the turkeys), we should have some new beautiful chicks. Finger crossed!