Only 8 days to go! Jill is being a very good broody hen. She gets up off her eggs when I feed the chickens in the morning, she eats, drinks, poops, and then settles back on the nest for another 24 hours.
Another hen, Ginger, has been broody for a couple of months. I have had a hard time with my Buff Catalana hens going broody, and in the past when I have tried to take them up on their offer to hatch eggs, something always went wrong. They would get nasty and throw a tantrum and accidentally break a nest full of eggs, or they would refuse to sit on the eggs and would try to brood an empty nest. I told our chicken loving friends about my broody hens and told them they could borrow one to hatch their own eggs. Ginger volunteered for the job and a week ago, I set 4 of their eggs and 4 of my green ones under her.
We will probably send Ginger to their house so she can raise the babies for them and either join their flock when she is done or come back home.
And apparently broodiness is contagious. If anybody wants to borrow a broody hen, you know who to ask.
