How do I make my chickens sit on their eggs?

[steppemum]

Hi all.
I have chickens, 3 bantams and an accidental cockerel.

The cockerel is on borrowed time. As the mornings get lighter and he starts crowing earlier, he gets more and more antisocial, and we will have to rehome him.

But before he goes, I'd love to have a cluck of chicks.
All 3 bantams are laying, and one of them had a cluck of chicks before I had her. (the other 2 are her daughters)

I've never had a cluck of chicks, so I'm feeling a little at a loss. We do have a separate run and house that we can put the chicken and her chicks in.

None of them show any signs of being broody.
How do I persuade one of them to sit on the eggs? Do I just stop picking up eggs?
Do I leave the eggs in the nest box and let her sit in there until they are hatched and then move to the separate run?

and finally, I know the cockerel is mating with the hens, how long does this last?
How many eggs does he fertilise? 1 day's egg? 7 days?

Thanks!

I'd be tempted to ged rid of the cockerel and then just get hold of some fertile eggs of a particular breed as and when you get a broody mother.
You could get some dummy eggs & leave them in one box to encourage them, just pick up the real ones?

Just about to say the same, buy dummy eggs. I used them with mine many years ago as a novice hen keeper when I was foolishly trying to encourage young hens to lay and one did go broody. Think they wait for a clutch before they do. I didn't have a cockeral though so she was wasting her time😢

@steppemum they can go broody anytime. Leaving the eggs for then to brood is one of the things which can trigger this.

The only way to find out is to stop collecting for a few days/a week and see how they get on

I’d wait a few months till the weather warms up. It may happen naturally, especially with bantams, if not get a couple of dummy eggs and leave them in the nest box. Some chickens never go broody. Some chickens also can’t deal with the actual chicks and will attack and kill them. We once found a massacre in our hen house when a nest of eggs hatched overnight and they were all killed by the other chickens.

When we had half a dozen or so hens they could go broody quite quickly if there were say, four or more eggs in the nest box.
And don't put off dealing with the cockerel too long -- we once had four eggs hatch and three of them were bloody cockerels!
So we ate one at about five months and it was as tough as old boots. Even after several hours' cooking.

@SiobhanSharpe

When we had half a dozen or so hens they could go broody quite quickly if there were say, four or more eggs in the nest box. And don't put off dealing with the cockerel too long -- we once had four eggs hatch and three of them were bloody cockerels! So we ate one at about five months and it was as tough as old boots. Even after several hours' cooking.

Did you hang it?

You need to gut then hang the carcass for a couple of days in a cool garage/shed

Thanks all. We will wait for warmer weather and then get some dummy eggs.

One of my hens has raised a clutch before (before I had her), so I know she can. But I think she probably needs to be away from the others.

When I was growing up we kept ducks which free ranged all over the village. They were easy, we coudl always tell who was trying to collect a clutch and left her to it and picke dup the other eggs. Sometimes they'd disappear and reappear with a trail of duckling behind her.
People in the village used to get really excited if one of the ducks decided to make a nest under a bush in their garden. Trouble was when they weren't in the duck house they were at risk from the fox.

But my chickens are different in the 7/8 years we've kept them I've never seem similar behaviour. We've had lots of different breeds too.

and with ducks you need to eat them in the first year for them to be tender.

With budgies (which may be different) they don't tend to start sitting on the eggs until they have 2-3 laid. They then sit pretty much full time and expect the dad to come and feed them.

@SunshineOnKeith - I suspect not!

Haven’t read all of this but:

1. Unless you keep the chickens indoors with control over lights they won’t go broody until April (give or take).

1. Crack open an egg - if the small pale patch on the yolk is a spot they’re not fertile, if it’s ring shaped they’re fertile.

@LovejoysVase

Haven’t read all of this but:

1. Unless you keep the chickens indoors with control over lights they won’t go broody until April (give or take).

1. Crack open an egg - if the small pale patch on the yolk is a spot they’re not fertile, if it’s ring shaped they’re fertile.

that's really helpful, thank you.

I shall look at an egg next time I eat one!

Can anyone answer the question about fertility, so after mating, how many eggs does the cockerel fertilise? Is it just that day's? Or a week's worth?
How does this work for birds?
Thanks

One active cockerel can fertilise lots of chickens (although in breeding for showing a ratio of 1:6 optimises fertility).

It takes a week or so for eggs to be fertilised (yolks develop on the ovaries and slowly travel down the oviduct gathering albumen, before being covered in shell and being laid), and once a cockerel is removed it can be up to three weeks before they lay non fertilised eggs.

lovely, thanks

I have a pair of bantams. One goes broody whenever she can, and seems to enjoy finding ever more inventive places to hide her eggs. There are between 8 and 12 eggs whenever she manages to stash some away. Flockdown has put a stop to this, but im sure as soon as they're allowed out she'll find some hidden inaccessible place to make a nest

Hens can lay fertile eggs for a week or two after the rooster is removed. Probably easier to buy fertile eggs from a breeder when you have a clucky and put them under her at night - it gives you your choice of breeds, and you can even get the eggs posted to you.

We csnt eat our excess roos because DD names them all and loves them. She'd never forgive us if we slaughtered them. So we rehome (where I accept they may get eaten, and it doesn't bother me; they've had much better lives than battery hens or male battery chicks).