It is almost magical to see, sort of like Christmas time in the nest box.  It is that special day about 21 days after the hen began squawking and pecking at all comers.  When a hen becomes broody she will not get off of that nest for any reason or anyone; you can pull eggs out from under her (and I have) and she will find a nest with eggs in it and defend that one.  I have tried to fool them with plastic eggs or golf balls but it never seems to work, they always find the real thing.

As neat as it is to hatch out your own broods and see the genetic line of your flock too continue on.  This is great in theory, just allowing your hens to do what your hens do naturally, but the problem with this is the percentage of roosters that come out of a "straight run".  It would stand to reason that the hatch rate of roosters to hens would be 50/50 but this has not been my experience.  I am not sure what the cause of this may be is but there always seems to be more roosters showing up than hens.  Another problem with all of this is that we can not tell the young cockerels from the young hens.  That rooster will just eat and eat for about four months until he crows for the first time.  Sure, you frequently can tell who will be who a little sooner but it is pretty hard.  After I can figure out who is what I take the roosters down to the feed store in order trade them in for a bag of feed (they'll end up as someone's Sunday chicken dinner).  All in all I really do not even break even on the roosters and so I had to come up with something else.

I am going to raise to pullets (day old baby hens) up from a couple days old to about five months old.  I pay about a dollar for a baby chick and then turn around and trade some of them for feed.  I also improve my flock in this manner.  It works basically like this, I moved a small chicken house at the far end of the chicken enclosure so that the broody hens can have their own quiet little place to do their thing.  I mark on the calender when the girls finally settled down for the duration of their job.  I wait for about 19 days and order my chicks and when the baby chicks finally arrive I creep out to the little chicken house and slide the chicks under the hens.

  If I had left any eggs out for the girls to sit on then I would remove them.  99% of the time the hens take them right in without any problems.  Multiple hens frequently become broody at the same time and they frequently fight for the best nesting boxes.  This way everyone wins, the chicks, the hens, and the flock.  You will not be making any serious money but this would be a great way to improve your flock and feed your girls.

Please read more on how to tend to our chicken house @ Hygiene tips for the coop.