Broody hen

Well, I am very excited to announce that we have got a broody hen!!

This has only happened to us once, last year, in the three years we have been keeping backyard chickens.  Sadly, before I could get too excited sly fox paid us a devastating visit see post 'Ups and Downs' 

Anyhow, the broody one is a warren, which Ive heard is unusual to go broody? So, after watching  her sitting on a clutch for a few days-so I was sure she wasn't teasing me, and not having a cockerel, I went to purchase some fertile eggs.  In my dream of the self sufficient living etc, I like the idea of breeding and raising chickens, both for eggs and meat but also for sale; in my farm shop of course!  This raised the question of what eggs to buy; where do you start?  I'm quite a novice yet, I don't mix frequently with anyone who keeps more than a few chickens for eggs let alone breeds chickens, so I wasn't at all sure where to start.  The idea of raising some table birds has been discussed before and I would also really like some bantam chickens (see post Ducklings); so it was decided that I would go back to the breeder that we bought our girls from and go from there.

Much to my husbands amazement, I returned with 12 bantam eggs; I say amazement because his reaction went something like

"I thought you were buying 6 table birds? what are we going to do with 12 bantams?"

( Proof that if I don' take the children and husband then I am either likely to make a random decision or get my own way!! )

Why dear husband, we are going to begin our foray into pure breed bantam chickens. As said, We now have a clutch of 12 tiny eggs, two are brown-Old English Game, one is white-Sussex and the others are a lovely blue green- Araucana.

As mentioned I am new to hatching and so Ive been reading around the subject again.  Lots of conflicting advice.  Do we move the hen and her eggs and risk freaking her out and breaking the broodiness? Or do we leave her where she is?; in the nest box in the henhouse, and hope that she copes just as well as she would in nature or if she was a free range bird?  We decided to leave her where she is; partly because we haven't set up another area suitable for her.  If you have any experiences of this then I would appreciate any comments or advice?

I am working on the basis that the incubation period for a standard size breed chicken is around 21 days, with bantams often hatching earlier-around 18 days, and I will update this page when there has been any developments

Fingers crossed for her, I do hope it goes well.