Broody Hens Are Weird

I'm convinced broody hens have magical powers. First of all, to stop eating and drinking, while pooping once every 5 days is impressive. I suppose in the natural world a broody hen would make her way under a secluded bush and disappear from her flock for the 21 days it takes to brood a clutch of eggs, only to emerge later with her chicks under foot. For a backyard chicken farmer, it is fun to see this natural process take place. Our hen is so devoted to her eggs, we make sure to remove her off the nest, and plop her down in front of her food and water once a day. It takes her a minute or two to come out of her zombie-state, pecks a few bites of food, and drinks a bit of water, only to hear the call of nature and return to her clutch within a few minutes.

Speaking of call of nature, one thing I found interesting, is that eggs and mother hens communicate. Scientists have researched this by putting tiny microphones on each egg and observing the hens activity. A hatching egg must be rotated quite often in order for it to hatch, and the mother hen takes care of this with her feet and beak, but what is interesting is scientists have learned the mother hen can hear sounds from within the egg and determine how mature they are. She will naturally move these eggs more towards the center of the nest. Also, close to hatching the chick will peep a bit louder, and signal the hen to get ready for them to hatch.

One thing that is nice about our broody hen is her disposition. Some broody hens can get aggressive when approached and practically attack you if you come near. Our hen allows us to pet her, remove her from the nest, handle eggs and clean up her space without even getting upset. Also, some broody hens are not as vigilant when taking care of their eggs, wandering off the nest for too long and switching nests can be a common thing, but our hen is very committed to her eggs.

We did candle our eggs to find two were not fertile as the inside seemed clear, and another had been contaminated with bacteria as it had the "blood ring", leaving us with only 9 viable eggs in the clutch. Naturally, we removed these from the nest. Candleing eggs is not very easy when you first try it. We kept looking at fertile eggs looking for the blood veins commonly known as the "spider". Seems as these eggs have brown shells, it was very difficult to see, but I never really saw it. What was visible later was the "air sac", and opposite that was a very dark area. As a beginner, this is probably what I should be looking for in an egg after about day 12. I assume I will learn more as I go, but that's what I know from this initial experience. It's important to check the eggs early, as it is recommended not to handle the eggs in the last week of incubation. So, from this point on, it is all up to our hen.