Broody Hen Management – A Beginner’s Guide

As much as I enjoy hatching chicks from my own incubator, nothing compares to the joy of watching a broody hen hatch out her own clutch of chicks. My hens typically get a better hatch rate than I do anyway (sometimes 100%!) and then I don’t have to fuss with humidity and heat settings, either. She takes care of it all; including raising those chicks!

However, there’s definitely an easy way and a hard way to manage a broody hen. I’ve learned my lessons throughout the years and now you can benefit from learning from my mistakes!

While having a broody hen hatch and raise chicks is super fun, it’s not always the desired outcome. I’ll also share my best tips for how to quickly and reliably break a broody hen without doing anything crazy like ice baths. Please don’t do that!

*Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products (including Amazon). I’ll earn a small commission if you make a purchase through my link, at no additional cost to you! Regardless, I only link to products that I personally use on our homestead or believe in.

What is Broody Hen?

Just because a hen spends her sweet time in the nesting box to lay her egg doesn’t mean that she’s broody. When a hen goes broody, you’ll know! It’s quite a dramatic change in their behavior and appearance when they decide that it’s time to incubate and hatch a clutch of eggs.

Signs of a broody hen

• Lets out a low growl and gets aggressive when approaching the nest (see audio clip below)
• Puffs out her feathers to cover all of the eggs
• Has a bare chest from plucking out her chest feathers (this creates better heat contact for the eggs)
• Rarely leaves the nest except for a quick nibble, sip of water, or to relieve herself
• Has broody poops (extra large droppings that are  ***)
• Starts clucking (high pitched and short) when she walks around (see audio clip below)

Broody hen growling

Broody hen clucking

How to Care for a Broody Hen

When a hen goes broody, you have two options. The first is to set up a safe and secure place for her to follow her instincts by incubating and hatching out a clutch of chicks. The second is to break her from being broody. 

It’s important to make that decision fast because if you just “leave her be” without viable eggs to hatch within a prompt 21 days, her health can take a serious turn and she could ultimately perish from malnutrition. 

If you’ve decided that you want her to hatch eggs for you (so much fun!), keep reading, but if you plan to break her, skip on to the next section for tips on how to safely and quickly make that happen.

Location & nest

So, you have a broody hen who is camped out in the communal nesting box, now what? The most important step is to move her to a dedicated maternity ward. Yes, it’s an extra step to set one up, but it is worth it. Every. Single. Time. Believe me.

I’ve helped dozens of homesteaders manage their broody hens and the worst outcomes always come from those who let their hens camp out in the coop nesting box. So many things can go wrong:

• The broody hen might get up to go eat and drink, then come back to sit on the wrong nest (leaving her developing eggs to get chilled)
• Another hen might try to climb into the broody’s nest creating a squabble and breaking the eggs (see photo below)
• Hens might lay their fresh eggs into the pile of incubating eggs and now you have eggs incubating on different timelines
• The freshly hatched chicks will have difficulty navigating in and out of the nesting box, the large coop, ladders, etc.
• The flock might kill the newly hatched chicks

As you can see, it can create a bigger headache and heartache (IMHO) than going through the trouble of setting up a basic maternity ward. Take the extra step and you (and the broody hen) will be so thankful afterward. 

Maternity ward set up

The good news is that this doesn’t have to be complicated. A broody hen needs a safe, quiet, and enclosed space that will also keep the chicks contained once they hatch (no large holes). 

This could be a large dog kennel, an enclosed chicken tractor, a separate section of the coop, or a homebuilt brooder (see photo below). The key is that it’s large enough to fit a nesting box, feed, water, and a place for her to relieve herself.

Where should it go? If possible, I like to keep my chickens at least within eyesight of each other so that reintegration isn’t a headache, so I like brooder boxes that are built into my coop. If this isn’t an option, choose a quiet location with dim lighting that is free from predators.

Don’t choose your living room where the lights are on, the kids are playing, and the TV is on. Also, don’t choose your front porch where unwanted visitors can come harass mama hen. A basement, enclosed porch, or garage would be perfect!

*Can’t set up a maternity ward? Check out the FAQ section where I have some great tips for you!

How to move a hen

Once you have your maternity ward set up, it’s time to move her over. However, the LAST thing you want to do is grab her in the afternoon and just toss her into the maternity ward. She will throw a complete fit and start pacing the walls trying to get back to her original nesting spot. 

Chickens are smart, but they aren’t that smart. You can trick your broody hen into thinking that she never moved in the first place. I like to use movable nests, so it’s super easy to just pick the nest up (with the hen and her eggs already settled in it) and set it directly into the maternity ward at night. It works like a charm, every single time.  

Most of you likely have permanent nesting boxes, so then what? In these situations, you’ll want to make the new nesting box in the maternity ward as inviting as possible. If you move her from her nice, warm, and cozy nest filled with her eggs into a cold and vacant nest, she’ll know it!

At night (chickens have poor eyesight, so use this to your advantage!), set a hot water bottle into the new nest to warm it up. Bring the new nest out with you to the coop, remove the hot water bottle, and transfer the eggs over (wear gloves if you have to – those hens can get fierce!).

Don’t forget to check under her wings! Sometimes she’ll tuck eggs under there and you’d hate to have them drop out and break when you pick her up. Lastly, gently move the mama hen over to the warm nest with her warm eggs and transfer the whole unit to the maternity ward.

Eggs

There is definitely an art to what eggs to use and how to use them. First of all, you’ll need fertile eggs. If you have a rooster then that’s super easy but if you don’t, you’ll need to obtain fertile eggs from a neighbor, local breeder, or hatchery. BUT, I will caution you from using expensive breeder eggs if this is you (or your hen’s) first time. Things might go south and I’d hate for you to blow $100 on a dozen eggs for nothing.

If your hen is already sitting on a clutch of fertile eggs, you can run with her plan, but it is a bit riskier. You may not know exactly how far along the eggs are. They may not be the best eggs for incubating (more on this further down). Plus, the clock is ticking on those developing eggs and she might abandon the nest after you move her. If you act fast, you can move them into an incubator, otherwise, those eggs might be a lost cause. 

My favorite method is to have my broody hen sit on wooden eggs first and once I know that she’s fully committed in her new location, THEN I swap them out (at night) with a clutch of fertile eggs that I’ve carefully selected. This is great too because you’ll know exactly when incubation started so you can pinpoint when to candle and when the hatch will be.

Selecting Eggs for Incubation

Not all eggs are created equal – some are much better suited for hatching and healthy chick development than others! Check out my video below to see everything you should consider when selecting eggs for incubation.

How many eggs?

Lastly, there’s the big question of “How many eggs can I give my broody hen?” It all comes down to how big the broody hen is and how big the eggs are. In general, most hens can cover 12-18 eggs if they are the same size that she lays. However, a small silkie may only be able to cover 8-10 large eggs while a large hen may be able to cover up to 24 bantam eggs.

Don’t overdo it, though. If you give a hen more eggs than she can effectively cover, the eggs on the edges of the nest may get chilled and stop developing. Keep an eye on her during the first few days and if you notice eggs poking out from underneath her feathers, remove them.

Consider using light bedding with low moisture such as wood shavings and shape it into a nice bowl to ensure that all of the eggs stay put. While I love to use straw out in the coop, it has a higher moisture level and can mold with the constant heat and moisture applied from the broody hen.

Food & water

Hens have different nutritional needs when they are incubating a clutch of eggs. They are no longer laying eggs so they don’t need supplemental calcium and are eating only 1/5 of their typical amount, so layer feed is no longer appropriate. 

There are two options for feeding a broody hen. One is chick feed – it’s high in protein which will support the hen with her reduced intake while also giving her time to adjust to the feed that both she and the chicks will eat once they hatch. The other is scratch grain, which is what I personally use (during the incubation period only).

I love using scratch grain because it’s higher in calories, which will help her keep more weight on during the 21-day incubation period. Scratch grain also keeps their large broody poops a bit more solid, which is great news for helping you keep the small maternity ward clean.

Water is pretty self-explanatory. Keep fresh and clean water available at all times. Stand-alone waterers can be hard to keep clean in a small brooder, so setting it up on a block can help keep stray bedding out. If you’re using a brooder, I love to use mountable coop cups to keep things clean.

Monitoring

Alright, here we go! The maternity ward has been set up, the broody hen has successfully been transferred and she is happily sitting on her fertile eggs. Now what? It’s important to monitor the process along the way to correct any issues before they happen.

The eggs

While I love how hands-off incubation is when using a broody hen, it’s still best practice to monitor egg development by candling the eggs on day 10 and day 18. This removes any potential risk of a rotten egg exploding in the nest and contaminating the rest of the eggs. It also allows the hen to provide better coverage to the remaining eggs if you remove any non-developing eggs.

If you haven’t candled before, definitely check out my article Candling Chicken Eggs: Day-By-Day Development!

The broody hen

Not all hens go broody, not all broody hens are good setters, and not all good setters are good mothers. Whew! You kind of have to be on your guard the whole way to identify if something is starting to go wrong.

The first thing to monitor is that she actually is leaving the nest to eat, drink, and do her business. In the beginning, I just let my broody hen do her thing, and that backfired, literally. She became so backed up that eventually her waste had to come out and it spoiled the nest and eggs. 

That was one of the most disgusting things I’ve had to clean up in my entire decade of homesteading. Thankfully not all of the eggs got spoiled, but I definitely had to toss a few out. Moral of the story: if you don’t see broody poops in the brooder, force her out daily so that she gets the job done.

Also, keep a close eye on your broody hen when it gets close to the hatch. Often, hens are more than happy to sit on eggs for weeks, but as soon as she starts to hear chirping and feeling foreign fluff balls emerging, she might decide this wasn’t such a great idea.

If you notice the broody hen getting agitated, pecking at the eggs, trampling, or being aggressive with the newly hatched chicks, get them out of there ASAP. Always have your incubator available and ready to go, if needed. 

Post-hatch care

Congratulations! Your broody hen just became a mama and she is happily sitting on her clutch of chicks in the nesting box. Now what? Thankfully, the chicks absorb the last of the nutrient-rich yolk just before they hatch so they can live off of that nutrition for 48 hours, so you don’t have to do anything immediately.

I leave mama hen with her clutch of chicks in the nesting box for a full 24 hours after the hatch. This ensures that everyone who was going to hatch has hatched and that all of the chicks have fully dried and fluffed out.

Nest changes

Then, it’s time to remove the nest. A nest typically has a decent lip in the front that keeps the eggs from rolling out, but newborn chicks will have trouble navigating their way over it. So, I gently move the mama hen out of the nest and to the brooder floor along with her chicks, then remove the nest. Discard any shells or unhatched eggs.

As long as you have lots of soft, absorbent bedding in their maternity ward, mama hen will make her own nest in a corner. This will be much easier for the chicks to navigate and also eliminates any odd corners or cold spots for chicks to get stuck in when they are exploring.

Feed changes

If you had your broody hen on scratch grain as we discussed above, now is the time to switch that feeder over to a high-quality chick feed. This is appropriate for those newborn chicks, but mama hen will also appreciate the extra protein after her 3-week fast. She won’t be laying eggs for another 6 weeks or so, so there’s no rush to get her back onto layer feed until she has finished raising her chicks.

Brooder changes

At some point, your mama hen and her chicks will likely outgrow their maternity ward. You can either move them to a separate chicken tractor, a separate pen attached to the coop or directly integrate them into the main flock. I’ve done all 3 and they work fine!

Mama hen is fiercely protective and will keep an eye out for her little ones, but she can only do so much. When they are less than 2 weeks old, chicks are super fragile, easy prey, and don’t have much for street smarts yet. At this age, it’s best to keep them in their safe maternity ward with mom. After 2 weeks old, it’s likely fine to move them to bigger digs.

How to Break a Broody Hen

Sometimes (hard to believe, I know!), you may not want your broody hen to hatch chicks. Maybe you already have too many chickens (guilty! Chicken math is REAL), it’s too late in the year to hatch chicks, or maybe you simply don’t have any fertile eggs available. 

If this is you, it’s important to break her as soon as possible. Not only is it contagious (before long, your entire crew might go broody! Eep!), but the longer a hen is broody, the harder it is to break her. Plus, she can become quite malnourished if she is allowed to remain broody for weeks or even months at a time. 

Throughout a normal 21-day incubation period, a broody hen can lose up to 20% of her body weight. That’s tolerable if she truly is incubating eggs for only 21 days. However, if you’re gathering eggs daily, or if she’s sitting on infertile eggs that’ll never develop, this could go on for months resulting in severe malnutrition, and even death.

The best method

There are a lot of different methods out there such as ice baths (to lower their raised body temp for hatching) or continuously kicking them out of the nest. I find these methods not only stressful for you both, but they aren’t all that effective, either. 

The best and most effective method is to remove the hen from her cozy nest and to a place that is not hospitable for incubating eggs. A dog kennel or a chicken tractor (with NO laying boxes) works great for this. A wire bottom is ideal, but if you need some sort of barrier a towel is better than fluffy bedding material – anything that reminds the hen of a nest should be removed. 

I’ve found that this breaks a hen within a couple of days as long as I catch it early. She’ll immediately pop up from her trance and start pacing back and forth. Before long, the hormone surge subsides and she’ll be back to normal and ready to join the flock.

How to discourage broodiness

While a broody hen can be wonderful when you want a hands-off approach to building your flock, sometimes it’s not always desirable. Here are a few tips for keeping the broodiness to a minimum:

• Collect eggs throughout the day (a big pile of eggs is a definite trigger for hens to go broody!)
• Use a rollaway nest to keep those tempting eggs out of sight
• Break broody hens immediately (it’s contagious!)
• Raise breeds that are not known to go broody: Ancona, Barnvelder, Campine, Crevecoeur, Hamburg, Lakenvelder, Leghorn, Mincora, Polish, Red Cap, and Sultan

FAQ About Broody Hens

I don’t have a brooder. What should I do?

While removing the broody hen to her own private maternity ward is best practice, there are things you can do to give hatching in the coop the best shot at success.

First, mark her clutch of eggs with a permanent marker so that you know that those are her developing eggs. There’s a good chance that another hen will sneak in there to lay a fresh egg in the pile. You definitely don’t want eggs at different stages of development. Check the nest daily and remove any fresh eggs.

Second, if you can provide some form of a private nesting space where she can sit in peace, that’s ideal. Chances are, she’s parked herself in the “favorite” nesting box so there’s going to be a traffic jam and squabbling on the daily (potentially leading to broken eggs). 

Lastly, if the nesting boxes are elevated, you’ll want to be on the ready to get the mama hen and her chicks down shortly after the hatch. Some people move the hen and eggs on day 18, but I feel like that’s too risky. Mama hen might not agree with the move and will try to get back to her original location, abandoning the whole clutch of eggs.

Can I give a broody hen chicks?

You sure can and I do it all the time! I really enjoy incubating eggs, so sometimes it’s hard for me to give that up. A happy medium is for me to hatch the chicks while my broody hen is happily sitting on wooden eggs. Then, I give the chicks to her to raise for me. A win-win!

The key part is that the chicks have to be less than 24 hours old so that the hen truly believes that she hatched them herself. If you try to sneak in 1-week-old chicks, mama hen will know something fishy is going on and she may even try to kill them. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen before and it’s devastating.

To ensure the best chance of her adopting them, bring the newborn chicks out at night when it’s completely dark and carefully slip them underneath her one at a time. Remove the wooden eggs as you swap them out for real chicks. Keep a close eye on her as you do the swap.

If she’s letting out a purring sound, fluffing her feathers, and nestling the chicks under her, that’s a great sign! If she’s jumping out of the nest, pecking at them, or acting agitated, remove the chicks immediately and get them into a chick brooder.

Come back right at dawn to see how she reacts when she sees the little fluff balls for the first time. If she jumps right into mom mode and is happily communicating with them, then you’re in the gold. Keep an eye on them throughout the day and if things are still great by mid-afternoon I’d say the risk of her turning on them is super low. 

How long will a broody hen keep her chicks?

In the beginning, I thought this was a clear-cut answer, but after watching 6-7 different broody hens raise chicks I noticed there’s quite a range to this answer! Some hens are over being a mom as early as 3 weeks and they can get quite aggressive with the chicks to get them to wean off of her. 

Then, there’s others like our sweet pea (RIP) who was the most amazing mom. She would hang onto those chicks for as long as possible until they finally broke free on their own. You can see her in the photo below, trying her best to continue to cover her young adult chicks. She made it to be 9 years old, which is pretty good in chicken years. We miss her so much!

How long will a hen stay broody?

A broody hen will stay broody until she has baby chicks to care for. This can go on for months if not corrected, which can have damaging effects on the health of the hen, sometimes even fatal. Therefore, it’s important to promptly give a broody hen fertile eggs/newborn chicks, or break her from being broody.

How to make a hen broody?

A few things are needed to make a hen go broody. The right breed, the right temperament, the right environment, and the right time of year. Some breeds have had the broodiness trait bred out of them and will never go broody in their entire lifetime. While others will be broody more often than not. I’ve had some hens go broody 10-15 times in one year. 

Breeds most likely to go broody

• Ameraucauna
• Brahma
• Cochin
• Delaware
• Jersey Giant
• Naked Neck
• Orpington
• Plymouth Rock
• Silkie
• Sussex

Even if you raise the right breed, it’s never a guarantee that she’ll go broody. You could have 5 orpington hens, but maybe only 2 are reliably broody. You might sometimes get a broody hen out of a breed that typically isn’t broody. It can be hard to predict, but the one exception is silkies; they are typically a slam dunk when it comes to guaranteed broodiness.

Next, you’ll notice that your hens have a good internal calendar and typically go broody in the spring, which is the best time to hatch and raise chicks. I rarely have hens that go broody in the dead of winter.

Lastly, a good hook, line, and sinker is a big pile of eggs. As long as the above conditions are met, she won’t be able to resist it!

Other Chicken Articles You’ll Love:

• Hatching Chicken Eggs: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide
• Raising Baby Chicks – A Beginner’s Guide
• Candling Chicken Eggs: Day-By-Day Development
• The 8 BEST Egg Incubators
• How Long Do Chickens Live (and Lay Eggs)?

*Information in this article was referenced from personal experience and/or from my favorite chicken book Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens unless otherwise noted.