For those of you that don't know I'm trying to get a few hens to hatch some chicks. I have left the eggs alone except for adding a few to see if that would get them to act broody. The nest probably has about 20 eggs in it now. Finally tonight when I fed cows and horses I looked over at the hens and saw a small change. As I got closer I saw that everyone was roosting up high except for my little Silkie hen. She was by the nest! I went over and peeked in and she was sitting on a brick right next to the eggs. Ughh! The brick is keeping their house off the ground because it rains alot here and I can't move it. Do you guys think if I tried moving the nest away from the brick she would mind? I'm going to check tomorrow to see if she figured it out.
Nope. I don't think so. Not all hens are broody. I've no clue what kind you have, but I've only had a couple of hens who wanted to sit on eggs; one was a black sex link, the other a barred rock.
I'm not terribly familiar with silkies, although I thought they should set...but perhaps she just doesn't feel like it yet? Maybe it's too early in the year, or too cold?
How high is this nest? Does everyone know where you are moving the eggs to? Chickens can be really stupid. Have you tried stuffing hens in there in turn?
Last year I had to move a nest. I had wyandotte hens bent on laying just in the sand fill in their run. They wouldn't stay on them and many times they were cracked from being laid where they were. So I brought in a wood box with lid, snuggled it up against the side of the shed but still inside the run since thats where they wanted to be. I filled it with straw, made a nice nest, moved their eggs and watched. They had no clue. They ran around having fits looking for their eggs. Only after we shoved them in there one by one did they figure it out.
Now silkies like to lay on the ground. If you have a nest box on the ground thats good enough. I had a small flock of silkies and their favorite place to lay was inside the hay barn snuggled into corners of bales because they couldn't get up into the nesting boxes. For the silkie to sit, she'll probably need a short ramp depending on how high the box is.
Hope that helps - then again as Tracey said, it may just be too cold yet for them.
Frustrated
Posted - Feb 27 2007 : 8:38:56 PM
