There’s nothing more exciting on the homestead than watching a mother animal do her thing and raise her babies! As much as we love to get our hands into the mix and do the raising ourselves, it’s always so much more fun, a whole lot less work, and so less stressful to watch mama do what nature intended. Seeing a mother hen hatch and raise her brood is definitely a highlight of the poultry raising experience on the homestead! But, how can you know for sure that one of your hens will sit out the necessary time period to hatch eggs successfully? How to tell if a hen will hatch eggs is a necessary skill if you plan on letting your flock become self-sufficient or want to let a mother hen hatch chicks!

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What is a Broody Hen?

First off, a mother hen is called a broody hen. Being broody is the term we use to describe a hen who thinks she wants to set on eggs and hatch them. Broodiness is a mothering instinct. Typically, broodiness is seasonal. It can be triggered by longer daylight hours, warmer temperatures, and an increase in hormones during the spring months. Spring is naturally a good time for raising and brooding chicks. The temperatures will be just getting warm enough without being too hot to encourage the growth of heat-loving, harmful organisms. Mother nature knows all of this and that is why spring is often a time of birth (or hatching) and baby animals.

During the spring months, roosters will become more assertive, active, and dominant. Hens will also become more hormonal and will be likely to go broody.

When chickens were domesticated, and selective breeding for production purposes became priority, broodiness became an undesirable trait in production breeds. This is due to the fact that a broody hen will stop laying so that she can concentrate all her energies into brooding her clutch. In commercial varieties, such as white Leghorns or Cornish rocks, the mothering instinct is all but non-existent. The hens simply do not have the natural instinct to go broody.

However, for those of us who are striving to go back to our roots, raise a self-sustaining flock, and experience the magic of a mother hen, we have other options!

Choosing Broody Breeds

In general, the further removed a breed is from its original genetics, the less likely it will retain natural instincts such as foraging or brooding. Purebred heritage breeds, landrace breeds, and rare breeds have usually been genetically preserved so that their genes contain many natural instincts, including the mothering instinct.

More than likely if you are building your homestead flock for sustainability, you will be sure to include some heritage, landrace, or rare breeds in the mix! Some breeds are just more likely to go broody than others. Here are some breeds that are notorious for having broody individuals:

• Silkies
• Orpingtons
• Svart Honas
• Cochin
• Brahmas

Keep in mind that each bird will have its own personality. Some individuals will be more inclined to go broody than others. Always consider the time of year too when assessing if one of your hens will go broody. Spring is the best time to hope for broody hens in your flock!

Signs of a Broody Hen

If you’ve included some broody-inclined breeds in your flock, then you will more than likely be hoping to have a broody hen in the spring. So, how can you tell if a hen is broody? Look for these signs of a broody hen:

• prolonged time in the nesting box accompanied by the following behaviors
• screaming, hissing, and pecking when you go to check for eggs
• fluffs up her feathers when you go to check for eggs
• the presence of a broody patch, which is basically a bare patch of skin on a broody hen’s breast where she has plucked her feathers
• the hen has stopped laying
• when you remove her from the nesting box, she plops down and won’t move OR
• she gets up clucking with ruffled feathers and releases a broody poop

If you experience one or more of these signs from your hen, then you have a broody mama hen on your hands!

As a side note here, some hens will be so persistently broody that they will go broody at any time of the year. Hens that go broody during the winter should be broken of their broodiness unless you have the proper means of providing an adequate brooding environment for the hen.

A broody hen will loose up to 20% of her body weight while she sets on her eggs, so she will not be able to handle extremely cold temperatures or other environmental factors that will demand strength and energy from a healthy hen.

How a Broody Hen Works

An environmental or instinctual trigger will cause a hen to go broody. She will lay a clutch of eggs over the course of as many days as it takes to gather an adequate amount of eggs to set on. A hen can cover about 12-18 eggs of the size she lays. Ironically, a clutch usually consists of an odd amount of eggs, since an odd amount of eggs sit better together than an even amount.

After a sufficient clutch has been gathered, her body will release a hormone (prolactin?) that causes her to stop laying. She then get’s down to the task of incubating the eggs.

A broody hen may also ‘build’ her nest by gathering nesting material in her chosen spot. She will pluck her own breast feathers to line the nest with. The bare skin that is left exposed also helps maintain the proper temperature and humidity needed during incubation.

A broody hen will only leave her nest about 2-3 times a day, sometimes less. During the excursions she releases a broody poop (which is a super stinky pile of excrement that she has been saving up for when she leaves the nest). She will also get something to eat, get a drink, and possibly do a quick dust bath. After that, it’s back to the nest!

Several times throughout the day, a broody hen will re-arrange her clutch so that the eggs get ‘turned’ and so that the eggs get evenly incubated (eggs on the outside of the clutch will switch places with the eggs that are on the inside of the clutch). This process allows for sufficient incubating conditions for all of the eggs to develop.

This will continue for the three weeks that it takes to incubate the eggs.

What Now?

If you know you have a broody hen, then you have two options. You can let the broody hen set on a clutch of eggs and hatch chicks. Or you can break the broody hen of her broodiness. Your decision may be determined by the time of year and your resources.

If the broody hen is in poor health (thin, has an ailment or parasites) then you will want to break her of her broodiness and get her back into proper health. Another reason why you might want to break a broody hen of her broodiness is if she goes broody during an inappropriate time of year, like winter time or during the fall molt. She should be putting her energy into staying warm or replacing her feathers rather than brooding a clutch of eggs.

If you decide that the broody hen can set on a clutch of eggs, then you will want to make sure you are adequately prepared to care for a broody hen before you allow her to continue to be broody. A broody hen needs fertile eggs in order to hatch a brood. So, if you don’t have a source of fertile eggs, you are better off breaking her of her broodiness.

A broody hen will also need a safe, properly prepared brooding pen to hatch her clutch of eggs in. You will need to set up the brooding pen and acquire fertile hatching eggs if you want to use your broody hen.

Testing a Broody Hen

So, you’ve decided that you can use your broody hen. Congratulations! You will be able to experience the magic of a mother hen with her chicks, that is, if she stays broody.

Not all hens have the determination to sit through the full three weeks of incubation and then be a successful mother. You don’t want a hen to start the incubation process and then abandon the partially developed eggs. So, how can you tell if a hen will make a good broody?

You have to test your broody hen before having her commit to the process of incubation. The first test will be moving her to your chosen incubating spot. The second test will be to see if she will incubate some dummy eggs for a few days before giving her the real deal.

1st Test:

While a broody hen can successfully brood and hatch a clutch of eggs within a flock, I recommend for first time broody owners to move their broody hen to a separate brooding pen. You will have more control over the care and maintenance of the broody hen and her brood and will be able to provide the mother hen the proper brooding conditions to hatch a successful clutch.

Set up a proper brooding pen (we will discuss this in a later post) and move your broody hen to the pen. Giver her some dummy eggs and see if she will set on them in the broody pen. Some hens are so dead-set on their chosen brooding spot that they will not be broody anywhere else. This first move will determine if you have a really determined broody hen.

2nd Test:

Let the hen set on the dummy eggs for 3-4 days. You can use this time to acquire the actual fertile hatching eggs. If she does all the normal broody behaviors and treats these eggs like they are developing, then you more than likely have a determined mother hen!

However, just to be on the safe side, I recommend you invest in an incubator if you don’t already have one. That way, if something does go wrong, you will be prepared to still have a successful hatch!

I know this post may leave you on a cliff hanger, but I didn’t want to be too long winded on this broody post. By at least knowing what a broody hen is, how to recognize one, and how to test a broody hen, you should have a good grasp on how to tell if a hen will hatch eggs for you. We will go over brooding pen set up and broody hen care in a later post. For now, make some plans for how you could use a broody hen on your homestead!

A broody hen is a great way to raise a self-sustaining flock of homestead chickens. I go into detail on that in the free ebook, Raising Chickens Like a Pioneer, that you get when you sign up for our weekly newsletter! So join the modern pioneer community, we’d love to have you!

by Alexa