[Kerriech]

One of our hens went broody, so bought some fertilised eggs to put under her. We moved her to a new house a couple of days before the eggs arrived but every morning she had moved and the eggs we left under her were freezing cold. When the fertilised ones arrived we decided that it was probably safer to leave her where she was happy. Don't think we really thought it through properly........

Will the other hens attack the chicks when they arrive? Should we segregate a wee bit off to keep them safe, before moving her and chicks to the other house?
Appreciate any advice anyone can offer..........

[devonlady]

We live and we learn. Another time it may be as well to put your broody on dummy eggs into the broody coop as soon as she's sitting tight, i.e. being a vicious little beggar and pecking hard!! And keep her there.
You might try now to put her in the dark on her eggs for 24 hours, she won't hurt without food or water for that long as long as she's not under full sun and just hope for the best.
Hope this works, let us know!

[Fleecewife]

This has happened to us too.  Main problem when she's sitting is that all her chums come to sit in with her and lay their eggs in her nest.  This means unless you can recognise the fertile eggs from everyone else's, and remove the aliens, you have so many eggs in there, which will either not hatch with the fertile batch, or the good ones will be shoved out, she won't be able to cover them all, and the whole lot can fail.  Even if some chicks hatch, the other eggs would be rotten by then, likely to break, and you have a nest full of stinking rotten egg 

So far we have had to leave these hens in the main house with the others and remove the alien eggs (wearing thick gloves against pecky hen).  As soon as the chicks have hatched, but before they start to move around, we move hen plus brood into a small broody ark, where they stay for a while.  Then we put them into a larger chick ark, and finally let them run free - if it's winter or we're worried about airborne predators then they go into the polytunnel.  We've occasionally ended up with 2 mums of one brood, and initially they share nicely, but one will eventually take over from the other.

So if you can get her to move with her clutch to a broody coop then do - saves a lot of hassle, but for us it's not always worked - you find the hen brooding nothing in a corner and freezing eggs left on their own in the nest.

[Marches Farmer]

We generally set out a nest for her and pop her in the broody coop just before dusk.  She'll usually eat, drink and poop then the temptation to sit on eggs takes over and she'll settle on them and be well esconced by morning. We don't use a traditional triangle shaped broody ark, just rig up something secure from old fireguards and so on, with a dark areaa at the back where she can see out.

[Clarebelle]

The first year we let a broody hatch eggs we separated her into a broody coop in view of the rest of the flock but the chicks still got attacked when they were let out to rejoin the flock.

This year we left our broody hens in the shed with the rest of the flock and had no problems at all, the rest of the flock didn't bat an eyelid at the New chicks and our cockerel even helped feed them. We will definitely do the same next year.