SOME THOUGHTS ON A BROODY HEN TODAY

HELLO & Welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm! I must share with you that I have a broody Buff Orpington hen. She currently sits and clucks on her one lonely plastic golf ball in her nest box she is guarding from the use of other hens. So I have decided that if she will stay put on her little clutch of the lone golf ball for a few more weeks I will slip in one night and ease some day old chicks under her.
Two weeks from today, March 25, I have 5-Wellsummer chicks arriving at my local feed store and if I can keep her broody till then and in the mean time get her confined in last years' brooder cage then I think the night the chicks arrive I will slip them under her and hopefully in the next morning all will be right with her world. As I have mentioned many times in these posts over the last year and a half, chickens are kind of dumb if you will excuse the slang language. They cannot tell a golf ball from an egg or a baby chick from a duckling. Hey maybe I need to slip a little quacker or two under her as well. I have been promising my middle brother to brood off a few ducks for his lake home and this might be a good time to try two or three along with the chicks.
Anyway, I thought you might like to know of my broody girl and hopefully she will continue to brood for a bit longer, two weeks at least I hope and that will cut down on the power of having to run a brooder light as well or worry about keeping a close eye on the new arrivals OR keeping them in the house for the first 5 or 6 weeks anyway. She will warm them and help them eat and they will fare fine with her and separated from the older hens till the get feathered out some and she will then even protect them from predatory habits from the other birds when introduced to the rest of the flock.
I will leave you today with our ongoing urban farm affirmation: "URBAN FARMING: ONE EGG AT A TIME!"