Hi Guys, there must be something in the air I have about 4 of my girls gone broody, do they stop laying when they go broody?.
Yes they do. The sequence is that a hen, and many wild birds, will lay an egg a day until they have filled their nest, then they go broody. This is when they sit on the eggs and start to incubate them. Before they go broody, the eggs are kept cool so they don't develop. Once the hen has gone broody and warmed them up, all the eggs develop together and hatch at the same time. If the broody continued to lay eggs once she had started incubating her clutch, then those later eggs would be wasted - once her chicks hatch she will be off with them, teaching them to find food, and any unhatched eggs will get cold and die. Birds of prey tend to be the exception to this where they lay an egg every few days but start incubating from when the first is laid. This means that the eggs hatch a few days apart, giving hthe breeding pair chicks at various stages of development. This is a survival strategy in response to varying prey availability - and when there's nothing to eat then the chicks eat eachother, littlest first.
The domestic hen will continue to look after her brood for several weeks, without laying any more eggs, until she suddenly decides that enough is enough and she wants to go back with her pals. She will then start laying again and the now half-grown chicks will take care of themselves
Topic: Advice please (Read 3757 times)
