Breeding with a hen
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Natural Breeding
The nice thing among the hen brooding, brooding nature called, is that you don’t need an incubator, the hen does its work for the chicks. It’s endearing to see how good a mother hen takes care for her little ones. But let’s start at the beginning:
Broodiness
Before a hen can start hatching eggs, she first has to become “broody”. A broody hen is a hen who constantly stays on her nest, and often still screams when something or someone comes close or near her. She then screams a lot to show that she wants to be left alone. Sometimes they can become aggressive and fiercely peck at your hand if you dare to come near.
Stimulate Broodiness
If you want to encourage broodiness, it is advisable to leave supermarkt-eggs or fake eggs in the nestbox. The amount of eggs could encourage them to become broody.
If the hen is really broody, she has a bare chest (better contact with the eggs), she will significantly reduce in weight because she eats and drink less. And if you take her off her nest, she wants to get back a.s.a.p, or only only dropdown ( without walking ). She will also make brave noises ( pook pook pook pook pook ).
Marking the hatching eggs
If it appears that she is really broody, you can take away the fake-eggs and lay the real eggs which she has to hatch around her. She will put them under her body herself. Make sure you mark the eggs with a pencil so you can see if she or other has have not layed in new eggs (usually made by another hen who sits beside).
Suitable breeding-opportunity
For the atmosphere of the hen it is advisable to place her on a place where she will not be disturbed by other birds. I myself sometimes find out that the valiant was chased of her nest by other hens which where higher in rank. In that case the hen will go breeding on the wrong place and the eggs will cool down ***.
***The cooling down of the eggs does not mean that the embryo’s have died. Although eggs have not been bred for 24 hours and they feel completely cold, they still can hatch. Put them under the hen or in the incubator a.s.a.p. What can happen is that the chickens will hatch one day later than in the first instance would be the case.
It is recommended to put the hen in a portable box to breed, so that you can easily move her as soon she is broody. You can move her in the box to another place ( the barn, or something else. It is recommended to put the hen on a dark cool place. I use a box (with large air holes stuffed with straw) with a sliding lid. There she can sit easy, safe and quiet.
Caring of the hen during the incubation
Once a day I take her off the eggs and make sure she will eat. I feed her cat meat from a can and take care she has plenty of fresh water to drink. I also cut some greens for her (wall, grass, dandelion leaves).
If she is eating good, she will just shake a lot and make some crazy jumps and then lay a big turd. And this looks very different from the “normal” chicken shit. It’s a terribly thick dark brown goo in a sky where you say “DearMrs” against. If such a turd on will be layed over the eggs, you can throw away the eggs, because then no one will hatch anymore. So take care you help her with this everyday.
A broody hen will not care for herself very well. Both during breeding and during the rearing of chicks. Please make sure that she is not loosing to much weight. You have to avoid,that her resistance goes down and that she will be sensitive for coccidiosis or other diseases. If you think the hen is very bad caring for herself, take her of her babies for a few minutes and give her meat for cats/dogs out of a can or other things where she can get stronger of. Take care she will stay healthy.
Clumsy Valiant
When the chicks have hatched, it may happen that a baby will get crushed under the hen’s foot. This often happens with large Orpingtons, not often with the bantam-variant. Sometimes they are standing in top of a baby-chick without noticing it. Whether the hen is like that or not, I cannot say before, cause every hen is different. Once you have the experience with a hen that she was quite rude, don’t let her ever hatch in the future.
Let babychickens adopt by a Valiant
You can also put baby-chickens under a hen. The best time to do this, is when it’s completely dark. Take all the eggs away and replace them for baby-chickens. Most of the time she will think the babies are hers and she will take care for them!
Housing, food and other facilities serving the hen with chicks
If you have a lot of chickens running, it is advisable to keep the Valiant with the babychicks seperate of the adults. Especially if the Valiant is a hen that is lower in rank. Then she might not be able to withstand the dominant females in the litter and than she cannot protect her babychicks.
Furthermore, it is also true that chicks need special food (see page Incubator and Chicks ). A valiant can also eat the baby-chickenfood as long as she is not laying eggs.
It is also recommended to put the valiant ( with her babychicks ) in a accomodation on one level or without a lot of high stairs. Otherwise the chicks will follow her and will roll down. When they cannot keep themsellf warm under the mother, they will get cold and die. Make everything as accessible as possible for the hen and chicks. If the hen often is doing her own things very often without taking good care of her babies, it might be usefull to take away the babies and to place her in a cage with a heat lamp and other stuff.
A hen will encourage her children to eat by taking the food in her mouth and then make a brave sound ( pook pook pook ) , which amkes that the babies are quickly around her to eat from her mouth. Even if she sees a worm, she will make the sound very loud as she wants to say; “Come quickly, I’ve got something special”.
If you don’t have a place for them where they can take a sandbath, please give them a box filled with sand. You will immediatly found out that they all like this very much! The children will follow this behavior.
As the chicks begin to grow and are coming into the feathers, it may be that the hen starts laying and then she starts pickin them. Mostly that’s the time the hen has decided that her job is done and that they have to take care for themselves.
It may well be that the hen which was broody will no longer be recognized by its mates and that she will be attacked. So please keep an eye on it that everything is going well, so that you can intervere.
