May Have Chicks soon!

[irishbunny]

One of our chickens went missing for about two weeks, I thought maybe a fox had gotten her, but low and behold she showed up again and I noticed she was broody/clucking because she was making the constant cluck, cluck noise they make when they are. I watched her until she went back to her nest. She had kicked the cats out of their sleeping box and made a nest in there . We checked and she has twelve eggs with her, she has been a good mother and has only left the eggs for a few minutes in the morning for some food, so if all goes well we should have chicks in a week or so . The mother who is hatching the eggs is from some eggs we hatched last year.

This is the batch we hatched out last year, she's third from the yellow one.

This is her on her nest

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Do you think she got with a rooster while she was gone? Cause if she wasn't around a rooster, then the eggs aren't fertilized.
Good luck and hopefully the eggs will hatch!

Emily

 

[irishbunny]

The eggs would be fertilized because they lay the eggs over time and then go broody, so she would have been with the rest of the chickens before she went off, and we have three roosters. She has twelve eggs but I doubt they will all hatch because she's a small hen.

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

What does broody mean? lol.
I see now how they'd be fertilized.

Emily

 

[irishbunny]

Broody is basically when a hen decides it wants to sit on eggs and hatch them, I guess it's sort of like when an animal goes into heat, usually a chicken will just lay and egg and walk away but when they are broody they will sit on it and keep it warm and only come off the eggs for a few minutes a day until they hatch. You know when they are broody because they go around making a constant cluck, cluck noise, puff up all their feathers and if you dare go near the nest they will attack you. Plus they stay away from other chickens while they are broody and won't lay eggs.