Weird Broody Hen

Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 6:56 AM

Have you ever wondered why people use incubators so much?  Probably not.  I mean, why not just have the hen sit on the eggs and hatch them?  Do I have you curious yet (the chicken in the picture sure looks curious)?  Probably not.  I'll tell you anyway.

The "broodiness" (instinct of a hen to sit on her eggs and try to hatch them) has been bred out of most chickens.  It's an undesirable trait.  The egg industry does not want chickens trying to hatch eggs and getting mad when you take them.  So only breed the ones that aren't broody.  Besides, incubators are much more predictable and controllable for the hatching industry.

Well that lands us in a dilemma because we lost one of our best hens this week to a weird occurance.  We purposely chose breeds that are more broody because we wanted to be able to have our hens hatch eggs when we needed more chickens.  If the hen does all the work hatching and raising the chicks, it takes a lot of the responsiblity off of us.  So far we have had no luck.  The first hen to go broody ate all but three of her eggs.  The second one changed her mind and got off of them.  The third starved herself to death.  That's right.  She sat on her eggs so diligently that she wouldn't even get off to eat (which they're supposed to do once a day) and literally starved to death on her eggs.

I was floored.  The survival instinct is the strongest one of all.  I know chickens aren't especially smart, but how could it just allow itself to starve when food was 3 feet away?  We're not sure if maybe it thought it couldn't get out of the nest box, but if it would have even tried, it would have realized it could.  I think the instinct is still in there, but it's so muddled in selective breeding that they can't get it right in their head.  DW is not discouraged and wants to keep trying.  I'm fine with that.  Lord knows we've got plenty of chickens.

Weird Broody Hen

Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 8:06 AM - Link

Were the eggs viable after she died?

It would be weird to go out and feed and water a brooding hen every day. Would it?

Mom

Hen Troubles...

Posted by wannabeone on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 11:05 AM - Link

Oh, for pitty sakes!! How terrible! I'm w/you, I would have thought that the ol' survival instinct would have kicked in, especially when the food - and other feeding chickens - were in plain sight.

I hope you have better experiences in the future.

Blessings from Ohio, Kim Wolf<><

Untitled Comment

Posted by dsw3131 on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 11:46 AM - Link

We put the eggs in the incubator just in case, but I doubt they'll hatch.