Well, our lovely girl (Ms. Pickles) has decided to go all broody on us. K, what’s broody? Well… it’s when your chicken can feel the start of Spring, loses her mind, and decides to hatch everything she finds. The thing is, we don’t have a rooster and therefor no fertilized eggs. All this egg warming is doin’ nothing, poor thing. She’s so serious about it. She sits in her little box ALL day. I mean, all day. We had to push her out a few times to make her eat and drink water.
So, because of all this we decided to try something new. We wandered over to a little garden shop, Pistils Nursery, to look around. Turns out they had a little basket of fertilized eggs from their garden chickens for $1 each. We bought 3 (and they gave us 2 extra, since they were a bit old). They told us to put those eggs under our broody chicken and we should have some baby chicks in 21 or so days! We wanted more chickens this year, but weren’t too excited about the idea of raising those little girls inside (since chicks are so messy). If our broody chicken hatches these girls she will also raise them! Yay for us! So, cross everything that these eggs hatch and we get 0 roosters (since those aren’t allowed in our city).
Wish us luck!
– Chelsey
Tags: about me, animals, broody, broody hen, chicken, chicken in the city, chickens, egg, eggs, hen, paper mama farm
Categories: about me, paper mama farm
We just finished doing this! Broody hens are the worst lol so we got her four fertile eggs and 21 days later we had three cutie patootie chicks:) we lost one but two are doing great and we broke the brood
I'm really hoping it works! That crazy girl was off of her eggs (in the wrong box) for a couple hours. The eggs were cold. Blocked that box and she got back on them. I just hope it works, since she's working so hard. I'll be candling them on Sat/Sun to check. Wish us luck!
If you end up with all roos or something strange you are welcome to some of our chicks 🙂 we are NOT keeping all 9 of these babies.
Whew! 9 babes. Hoping for now roos. Also hoping at least a couple hatch. Candling this weekend!
Yay !!!! Us too. On the same timeline. Easter chicks for everyone.
I look forward to seeing the progress Ms. Pickles makes with her eggs!
Will you name the chicks Gherkin and Baby Dill?? Ha! 🙂
Ha ha ha! Yes.
Good Luck Ms. Pickles! 🙂
Hee! She thanks you. 😉
How exciting!!! Good luck!!
Thanks!
That's going to be so exciting for your daughter to get to go out one morning and find baby chicks running around the coop. My husband and I have done this a few times and while sometimes things can go wrong (such as figuring out what to do with your unwanted rooster or a chick not making it), it's overall been a really fun and positive experience.
Yes, and we get attached to our chickens… I would hate to think about sending away one of the roosters we raised to be eaten. Erg.