We have had years where it doesn't work as well as we like, but generally its worked pretty well for us over the years. The weather can play a bit roll in it sometimes with the broody hens (or that's something we have noticed).
She is a great hen because you can really get in there and see what she is doing. She is so people orientated she will let you see under her and such without getting upset (looking forward to showing some of that during the process!).
Awesome! Thanks for the info! We have been thinking about this for a long time and are planning on trying it as soon as we get a rooster. Very valuable information about the girls sitting on their eggs ! Thank again!
We found out pretty early on that we had better success with the hens sitting their eggs than we did using the incubator. And there are some other benefits we find (but stay tuned for the next few parts to this series over the spring!)
FINALLY answer to my hen hiding her eggs from me. She just started doing that. She isn’t sitting, but adds an egg a day. Hopefully she will start sitting on them. Thank you
We are glad you enjoyed it! the carrier works great as a mobile nest box. We will have more videos coming of how we manage the hens and such but they will be coming as the hens getting going!
No I didn't grow up on a farm though I did grow up in a rural area and my family did have a big garden, and my great grandmother (who lived across the road) also had a big garden. Some of it comes from that knowledge, and some comes from just assimilating information. We aren't overstating it when we say we overthink things and we don't generally just take things at face value (without looking a lot more into it). The odd part for us is that it sometimes seems like we are doing things quite "differently" from others and its working (and has been for over a decade now). That's another reason for starting the channel to just document some of it (like using broody hens to produce all your chicks).
@@HickorycroftFarm I used to use broody hens exclusively, 30 years ago, since we started chickens again 7 years ago, I haven't found any good broody hens... My neighbour gave me one of his banties, and she wouldn't set a standard egg... I have been looking for OE Games, but no one seems to raise them around here anymore.
Its something we have done for years using the broody hens to incubate all our chicks. And figured we would try putting together a series on it to just show what we do (well they do all the work lol).
Dear Farmers of Hickorycroft Farm, I have watched this set of videos on Raising Chicks with a Broody Hen, as well as a couple of other videos on your Partridge Chanteclers. I have seen no other videos which come close to yours for such excellence. I expect that you are going through the same chain of events this year with your hens as you were when you put these videos in place. I would be grateful if you would answer some questions for me. I know no one else to turn to. Questions : 1. You have been raising Partridge Chanteclers for quite a few years. From the beginning, did quite a few of them go broody for you, or did this characteristic grow in number over the years? 2. Were the original Chanteclers you bought hatched and raised under broody hens, or were they hatched in incubators? 3. Can you confirm for me whether or not broodiness is a inherited trait? Is it a genetic trait? Is a lack of broodiness an inherited genetic trait? 4. You seem to have quite a few hens which go broody each year. Is this because you now have a high number which have inherited this genetic genetic trait? 5. Do all your hens have the broody trait, or only some of them? What percentage of your hens have it? 6. Do your broody hens go broody every year, or, only some years? 7. Do you help to bring out the broodiness in your hens? If so, how do you do it? I do hope that you will answer these questions for me. I know of no one who would have the answers to them. If you can recommend anything I should read on this topic, I would be very grateful. I apologize for taking your time. I am very grateful for what I have learned from you. Thank you in advance for helping me out. Sincerely, Larry Lewis London, Ontario.
Hi Larry, thank you for the amazing questions (and we apologize for not getting back to you very quickly). We are really glad you're enjoying our videos; honestly, we just film what we do and enjoy sharing it and our thoughts on homesteading and growing food. So let me see if we can answer your questions. 1. You have been raising Partridge Chanteclers for quite a few years. From the beginning, did quite a few of them go broody for you, or did this characteristic grow in number over the years? - Well, it's a bit of both. We have selected for broodiness over time, but at the beginning, I think it was mostly giving them the opportunity to set that helped make it work. We have had lines that we have brought in that vary in their broodiness, but over time, they all do become pretty similar. From talking with others who have the breed, they do seem to have a pretty good tendency to go broody. 2. Were the original Chanteclers you bought hatched and raised under broody hens, or were they hatched in incubators? - All of the original birds (going way back to 2009) were hatched in incubators. Most by others, and a few we brought in from BC by us (we had an incubator for a few years early on and were utterly disappointed with it vs. the birds). The funny thing, though, is we actually started with Cayuga ducks, and getting them to sit is simple but a bit more complicated than chickens, so making the jump from ducks back to chickens was pretty easy in a way. 3. Can you confirm for me whether or not broodiness is an inherited trait? Is it a genetic trait? Is a lack of broodiness an inherited genetic trait? - I would have to go back and do a bit more research as it's been a long time since I've looked into the science of it. But what I do remember from my past research is that it may be a bit of both inheritances and learned. Interestingly from what I remember (and I have been meaning to look this up again), the rooster is the more important part of the equation. To somewhat "breed" broody hens keeping genetically related roosters to a hen that went broody (i.e., her offspring) can really quickly help establish the trait (to a degree) in your birds. And that was something we have followed in more than just chickens. While I can't validate it scientifically, when we were starting out, it did seem to make a difference. 4. You seem to have quite a few hens which go broody each year. Is this because you now have a high number who have inherited this genetic trait? I would say yes to a degree, but also I think there is a learned component to it. Again I cannot scientifically back it up, but it is very interesting (and it does make sense) how much chicks learn from their mothers. That is something we have noticed in the development of hen-raised chicks vs. incubated chicks. Chickens, in general, seem to be able to figure things out at a young age, BUT they don't learn a lot of the social aspect of things the way they do when raised by a hen. 5. Do all your hens have the broody trait, or only some of them? What percentage of your hens have it? - They certainly don't all go broody every year, but I don't know percentage-wise how many do (we could calculate that this year). We tend to only let two per line go broody each year (sometimes we have a few more that "volunteer") to keep a controlled number of chicks per year, so even though we may have 6 hens or so per line, they certainly don't all going broody each year. 6. Do your broody hens go broody every year, or, only some years? - Again, this is a tough one to answer concisely, but some hens have stayed around for years (think our oldest hen was around 7 and still broody). Typically if in their first breeding season, they go broody, we do find they are very likely to repeat it again the next year (some twice in the same year). But there is certainly individual variation in that. We do mark birds that have been broody with coloured leg bands to keep track of them over the year. 7. Do you help to bring out the broodiness in your hens? If so, how do you do it? - We do help encourage it in the spring. Most of what we do is in our series on managing broody hens, but its mostly just giving them an appropriate nest box. Moving them only at night (once they do sit). Keeping them somewhere quiet without a lot of distractions (i.e., other hens) and keeping track of the number of eggs a hen is trying to sit on. One other little thing we do find is that by having the nest boxes on the ground in the coop, it seem to help (and facing the entrance of the nest box away from the doors etc.), but I know others do have hens go broody in elevated nest boxes to. And we haven't forgotten about your other questions either! We will try to get back to you tomorrow! It is really great to meet folks from Ontario and who enjoy the kind of content we keep producing, so thank you for all the encouragement with your comments! One book we would recommend that goes into a lot of detail similar to how we manage our birds is The Small-Scale Poultry Flock by Harvey Ussery. It was recently revised, and I've heard good things about the new edition though I've not read it yet. But I remember picking up his original version a few years after we got into poultry and thinking that what he is doing is so similar to what we were doing (and about the only resource that seemed to be similar).
@@HickorycroftFarm Dear Farmers of Hickorycroft Farm, Thank you, thank you, and thank you again for your replies to my questions. Your replies were all thought out with great care, just as carefully as you raise up your Chanteclers. I wanted to get this thank you off to you so you would know how grateful I am to you. I plan to drop you another line to tell you a couple of anecdotes concerning brooding hens. In the meantime, I fully expect you are in the midst of hatching and raising up chicks for this year. I pray it is all going well. Sincerely, Larry Lewis London, Ontario, Canada.
@@HickorycroftFarm Dear Farmers of Hickorycroft Farm, I am a very primitive user of this technology, so I am not sure if I am sending you messages the right way. I did want to tell a couple of broody hen stories. The first was when I was a kid back in the 1950s. Farmers still had small farms and small flocks of chickens. The ‘egg money’, as it was called, bought the groceries at the local store. Anyway, a farmer known to us, had a hen escape to the hay/straw mow and she hatched out a bunch of chicks in the early fall. The farmer had no use for them, so he contacted my family since he knew I had banties, et cetera. As you can imagine, for a kid, it was like a gift from heaven. I was ecstatic. Then, a few years ago, a homesteader on the internet, who had a small flock of mixed breeds had a pullet hatch out 10 chicks in the fall. This is an interesting and instructive tale. The homesteader would hatch out enough chicks each year for eggs and meat for the family. This pullet would have hatched out in April and in October she went broody. That says to me she had a strong broody instinct. The pullet was white in colour with a few black feathers. When she disappeared, the homesteader thought that she must have been picked off by a predator. But, not so, she had secretly laid a clutch of eggs in a haymow in a shed. Only when he heard the chicks did he find the lost hen and her little brood of 10 chicks. What is instructive about these too little stories is how they reveal what are the conditions for broody hens to be successful. You know these better than anyone I have read before: separation from the flock, privacy, no disturbances or distractions, darkness, et cetera. Sadly, this fellow didn’t follow through with this broody hen nor with her progeny, which, I believe would have more likely than not have inherited the broody trait both by nature and nurture. Once again, thank you for your generous responses to my questions. Believe me I won’t be pestering you, so don’t get cold feet when I drop you a couple more lines. I will tell you the reasons why I have asked these questions regarding Chanteclers. Also, I am planning to savour more of your interesting videos, two in particular, the one on kohlrabi and the one on elderberries. I have a good kid’s story on the raising of kohlrabi. And I have long been a sleuth in tracking down wild elderberries for elderberry pie, one of my favourite pies. In the meantime I hope you and your family are thriving on the farm, and I wish you a Happy Easter. Sincerely, Larry Lewis, London, Ontario, Canada.
We haven't had much luck with our broody hens lately. Great tips, thanks for sharing 🤙-Josh
We have had years where it doesn't work as well as we like, but generally its worked pretty well for us over the years. The weather can play a bit roll in it sometimes with the broody hens (or that's something we have noticed).
Pheobe is hilarious. Definitely a calm broody.
She is a great hen because you can really get in there and see what she is doing. She is so people orientated she will let you see under her and such without getting upset (looking forward to showing some of that during the process!).
Hey yalllll!!! New subscriber here from @blands promised land ranch and we LOVVEEEE YALLL already and love your channel!!! God Bless
Thanks so much, we appreciate it. Monica and Eric are great!
Awesome! Thanks for the info! We have been thinking about this for a long time and are planning on trying it as soon as we get a rooster. Very valuable information about the girls sitting on their eggs ! Thank again!
We found out pretty early on that we had better success with the hens sitting their eggs than we did using the incubator. And there are some other benefits we find (but stay tuned for the next few parts to this series over the spring!)
FINALLY answer to my hen hiding her eggs from me. She just started doing that. She isn’t sitting, but adds an egg a day. Hopefully she will start sitting on them. Thank you
Thank you for sharing! Hugs and love to you and your family. ❤️✝🤗 Have a beautiful and blessed week. God Bless ❤️✝🤗
😀❤
Great tutorial. I live the pet carrier idea. Keep up the great videos. 💚🌱
We are glad you enjoyed it! the carrier works great as a mobile nest box. We will have more videos coming of how we manage the hens and such but they will be coming as the hens getting going!
Well done! My broody hen keeps leaving eggs out of her nest. Might be because I gave her too many eggs lol
That is possible, we sometimes have to take a few eggs from the hens if they can't fit them all under them comfortably.
What size dog crate did you use?
Chris, you always seem to have more basic old farming knowledge than most UA-cam "Back to the Landers"... Were you born a farmboy?
No I didn't grow up on a farm though I did grow up in a rural area and my family did have a big garden, and my great grandmother (who lived across the road) also had a big garden. Some of it comes from that knowledge, and some comes from just assimilating information. We aren't overstating it when we say we overthink things and we don't generally just take things at face value (without looking a lot more into it). The odd part for us is that it sometimes seems like we are doing things quite "differently" from others and its working (and has been for over a decade now). That's another reason for starting the channel to just document some of it (like using broody hens to produce all your chicks).
@@HickorycroftFarm I used to use broody hens exclusively, 30 years ago, since we started chickens again 7 years ago, I haven't found any good broody hens... My neighbour gave me one of his banties, and she wouldn't set a standard egg... I have been looking for OE Games, but no one seems to raise them around here anymore.
That's a great idea!
Its something we have done for years using the broody hens to incubate all our chicks. And figured we would try putting together a series on it to just show what we do (well they do all the work lol).
Nice keep us updated please.:-):-):-)
We will! We may already have one hen sitting (going to give her one more day to make sure).
Dear Farmers of Hickorycroft Farm,
I have watched this set of videos on Raising Chicks with a Broody Hen, as well as a couple of other videos on your Partridge Chanteclers. I have seen no other videos which come close to yours for such excellence.
I expect that you are going through the same chain of events this year with your hens as you were when you put these videos in place.
I would be grateful if you would answer some questions for me. I know no one else to turn to.
Questions :
1. You have been raising Partridge Chanteclers for quite a few years. From the beginning, did quite a few of them go broody for you, or did this characteristic grow in number over the years?
2. Were the original Chanteclers you bought hatched and raised under broody hens, or were they hatched in incubators?
3. Can you confirm for me whether or not broodiness is a inherited trait? Is it a genetic trait? Is a lack of broodiness an inherited genetic trait?
4. You seem to have quite a few hens which go broody each year. Is this because you now have a high number which have inherited this genetic genetic trait?
5. Do all your hens have the broody trait, or only some of them? What percentage of your hens have it?
6. Do your broody hens go broody every year, or, only some years?
7. Do you help to bring out the broodiness in your hens? If so, how do you do it?
I do hope that you will answer these questions for me. I know of no one who would have the answers to them. If you can recommend anything I should read on this topic, I would be very grateful.
I apologize for taking your time. I am very grateful for what I have learned from you. Thank you in advance for helping me out.
Sincerely,
Larry Lewis
London, Ontario.
Hi Larry, thank you for the amazing questions (and we apologize for not getting back to you very quickly). We are really glad you're enjoying our videos; honestly, we just film what we do and enjoy sharing it and our thoughts on homesteading and growing food. So let me see if we can answer your questions.
1. You have been raising Partridge Chanteclers for quite a few years. From the beginning, did quite a few of them go broody for you, or did this characteristic grow in number over the years? - Well, it's a bit of both. We have selected for broodiness over time, but at the beginning, I think it was mostly giving them the opportunity to set that helped make it work. We have had lines that we have brought in that vary in their broodiness, but over time, they all do become pretty similar. From talking with others who have the breed, they do seem to have a pretty good tendency to go broody.
2. Were the original Chanteclers you bought hatched and raised under broody hens, or were they hatched in incubators? - All of the original birds (going way back to 2009) were hatched in incubators. Most by others, and a few we brought in from BC by us (we had an incubator for a few years early on and were utterly disappointed with it vs. the birds). The funny thing, though, is we actually started with Cayuga ducks, and getting them to sit is simple but a bit more complicated than chickens, so making the jump from ducks back to chickens was pretty easy in a way.
3. Can you confirm for me whether or not broodiness is an inherited trait? Is it a genetic trait? Is a lack of broodiness an inherited genetic trait? - I would have to go back and do a bit more research as it's been a long time since I've looked into the science of it. But what I do remember from my past research is that it may be a bit of both inheritances and learned. Interestingly from what I remember (and I have been meaning to look this up again), the rooster is the more important part of the equation. To somewhat "breed" broody hens keeping genetically related roosters to a hen that went broody (i.e., her offspring) can really quickly help establish the trait (to a degree) in your birds. And that was something we have followed in more than just chickens. While I can't validate it scientifically, when we were starting out, it did seem to make a difference.
4. You seem to have quite a few hens which go broody each year. Is this because you now have a high number who have inherited this genetic trait? I would say yes to a degree, but also I think there is a learned component to it. Again I cannot scientifically back it up, but it is very interesting (and it does make sense) how much chicks learn from their mothers. That is something we have noticed in the development of hen-raised chicks vs. incubated chicks. Chickens, in general, seem to be able to figure things out at a young age, BUT they don't learn a lot of the social aspect of things the way they do when raised by a hen.
5. Do all your hens have the broody trait, or only some of them? What percentage of your hens have it? - They certainly don't all go broody every year, but I don't know percentage-wise how many do (we could calculate that this year). We tend to only let two per line go broody each year (sometimes we have a few more that "volunteer") to keep a controlled number of chicks per year, so even though we may have 6 hens or so per line, they certainly don't all going broody each year.
6. Do your broody hens go broody every year, or, only some years? - Again, this is a tough one to answer concisely, but some hens have stayed around for years (think our oldest hen was around 7 and still broody). Typically if in their first breeding season, they go broody, we do find they are very likely to repeat it again the next year (some twice in the same year). But there is certainly individual variation in that. We do mark birds that have been broody with coloured leg bands to keep track of them over the year.
7. Do you help to bring out the broodiness in your hens? If so, how do you do it? - We do help encourage it in the spring. Most of what we do is in our series on managing broody hens, but its mostly just giving them an appropriate nest box. Moving them only at night (once they do sit). Keeping them somewhere quiet without a lot of distractions (i.e., other hens) and keeping track of the number of eggs a hen is trying to sit on. One other little thing we do find is that by having the nest boxes on the ground in the coop, it seem to help (and facing the entrance of the nest box away from the doors etc.), but I know others do have hens go broody in elevated nest boxes to.
And we haven't forgotten about your other questions either! We will try to get back to you tomorrow!
It is really great to meet folks from Ontario and who enjoy the kind of content we keep producing, so thank you for all the encouragement with your comments!
One book we would recommend that goes into a lot of detail similar to how we manage our birds is The Small-Scale Poultry Flock by Harvey Ussery. It was recently revised, and I've heard good things about the new edition though I've not read it yet. But I remember picking up his original version a few years after we got into poultry and thinking that what he is doing is so similar to what we were doing (and about the only resource that seemed to be similar).
@@HickorycroftFarm Dear Farmers of Hickorycroft Farm,
Thank you, thank you, and thank you again for your replies to my questions. Your replies were all thought out with great care, just as carefully as you raise up your Chanteclers. I wanted to get this thank you off to you so you would know how grateful I am to you.
I plan to drop you another line to tell you a couple of anecdotes concerning brooding hens.
In the meantime, I fully expect you are in the midst of hatching and raising up chicks for this year. I pray it is all going well.
Sincerely,
Larry Lewis
London, Ontario, Canada.
@@HickorycroftFarm
Dear Farmers of Hickorycroft Farm,
I am a very primitive user of this technology, so I am not sure if I am sending you messages the right way.
I did want to tell a couple of broody hen stories. The first was when I was a kid back in the 1950s. Farmers still had small farms and small flocks of chickens. The ‘egg money’, as it was called, bought the groceries at the local store. Anyway, a farmer known to us, had a hen escape to the hay/straw mow and she hatched out a bunch of chicks in the early fall. The farmer had no use for them, so he contacted my family since he knew I had banties, et cetera. As you can imagine, for a kid, it was like a gift from heaven. I was ecstatic.
Then, a few years ago, a homesteader on the internet, who had a small flock of mixed breeds had a pullet hatch out 10 chicks in the fall. This is an interesting and instructive tale. The homesteader would hatch out enough chicks each year for eggs and meat for the family. This pullet would have hatched out in April and in October she went broody. That says to me she had a strong broody instinct. The pullet was white in colour with a few black feathers. When she disappeared, the homesteader thought that she must have been picked off by a predator. But, not so, she had secretly laid a clutch of eggs in a haymow in a shed. Only when he heard the chicks did he find the lost hen and her little brood of 10 chicks.
What is instructive about these too little stories is how they reveal what are the conditions for broody hens to be successful. You know these better than anyone I have read before: separation from the flock, privacy, no disturbances or distractions, darkness, et cetera. Sadly, this fellow didn’t follow through with this broody hen nor with her progeny, which, I believe would have more likely than not have inherited the broody trait both by nature and nurture.
Once again, thank you for your generous responses to my questions. Believe me I won’t be pestering you, so don’t get cold feet when I drop you a couple more lines. I will tell you the reasons why I have asked these questions regarding Chanteclers. Also, I am planning to savour more of your interesting videos, two in particular, the one on kohlrabi and the one on elderberries. I have a good kid’s story on the raising of kohlrabi. And I have long been a sleuth in tracking down wild elderberries for elderberry pie, one of my favourite pies.
In the meantime I hope you and your family are thriving on the farm, and I wish you a Happy Easter.
Sincerely,
Larry Lewis,
London, Ontario, Canada.