Mama Hen
April 20, 2026
Mama Hen
We eneded up with a broody bantam hen. I was not really sure about broodies. I’ve been raising chickens since I bought my first 60 from McMurray hatchery at 14 years old for a “homeschool project” that taught me I loved raising animals.
Every book I found said to break up broodies. I’d never ended up letting one be broody. I incubated artificially. For about 5 years, I used a foam plastic incubator to incubate 42 eggs every 4 weeks. My success rate was above 90%. I thought this was good.
Fast forward to our restart. We did incubate eggs to get our current flock. Two nice roosters and five sweet hens. We bought some biddies from two neighbors to bring our flock up to eight chicken hens and one duck hen (Rose is Lucas’ pet)
The incubator required 22 days of uninterrupted power. It was efficient but the heating of biddies also needed to be constant in a brooder. This just didn’t work well with our power situation. We were making it work, but not on high production yet.
Louis’ brother gave us 4 old hens, 2 are too old and don’t lay, one is Rose Red who lays about 4 eggs a week, and one was a bantam wyandotte look-alike with feathered feet who had raised 8 buddies to a couple of weeks old. We got her and her chicks.
Oh.
My.
Goodness!
I love broody hens!!
She raised these biddies with 100% success. She taught them to eat, drink, find stuff, hide, be safe, and all the chicken things. It was fascinating to watch. And it was winter – coldest in our area for over 20 years. (Granted, this is Florida, and our cold was a few high 20s and a. 18°, but still!)
Then when they got about 9 weeks old, she kicked the 3 cockerels out, attacking them. I moved them to the grow out pen. They are bantams so likely 1 pound soaking wet: not looking forward to plucking all those feathers for parakeet meat. 2 more weeks and she started kicking out the 5 pullets. They transitioned to the adult flock easily.
This was because she had started laying and setting again. I traded her tiny unfertilized eggs out for fertilized chicken eggs from. Our full-sized best layers.
Bingo.
Granted, this round we didn’t incubate many because I wasn’t really trusting yet. This hen tried for 24! She kept laying until 24 were under her. We had 4 infertile ones and candled to remove them. There was a very unexpected cold snap about 6 days in. Mama wasn’t brooding those just yet so I should have exchanged them but life was so busy i forgot until we did the 2nd candling right before they should have hatched. Big booboo.
Of the 2 that survived the freeze, she hatched both.
That felt like a bummer, until I factored the cost of her egg potential for estimated 10 weeks (she’s a low layer, 2 to 3 eggs a week) and our 24 eggs. We paid about $9.80 for 2 biddies. Ouch. But really not. The least expensive straight run we can buy around here is $4.99 and I usually don’t like the breeds at TSC.
Anyway, life is always learning. Next round, candle if there’s a crazy unexpected unseasonal freeze and my broody wasn’t yet really being broody. Some pictures for cuteness.
Thank you for reading,
Type at you later,
~Nancy Tart
