Our chicken, Nix, is broody. She plucked out her bottom feathers and won’t eat or drink unless I collect her eggs and kick her out of the coop. Then she runs to the flock and eats and drinks like mad.
Our chickens are super social and very personable. Nix is a doll, so I feel for her. All she wants is to be a mommy. So we’re gonna try getting her a chick or a few. Apparently, if you hide the chick(s) in your hand and slide it(them) under a broody hen when you collect eggs she should take to them and raise them.
I truly hope this works. Nix deserves to have her own family. It makes me sad that people view broody hens as problematic. They merely wish to enjoy a familial bond that is common to so many of the earth’s creatures. It does them a disservice to rob them of it.
She’s been such a joy to us that I hope to let her have all the joy in the world herself, and sadly, there is no Rent-A-Cock service nearby where I can rent a rooster for a bit to get her eggs fertilized.
That is a fun business idea though, right?
How fun would it be to start a Rent-A-Cock business to go around helping backyard chicken farmers give their broody hens the family they want? Of course, it’s not as simple as that. Roosters are territorial, and flock politics is way more complicated than I expected, so I don’t even know if that would work in reality. But it’s a fun idea haha
Here’s hoping I find some young chicks at the farmer’s market on Saturday and that Nix adopts them as her own.
Jessica Marie Baumgartner 
We’re in the midst of the same issue! We’ve got her sitting on a few fertilized eggs now. Uncharted territory!
I wish we could have a rooster 😦 I’d love to let Nix hatch some of her own babies. You have to let us know how it goes. I didn’t know you had chickens too! They really are the best.
Yep, we got our chicks five years ago. We did have a rooster for a bit… I’ll have to blog about that experience sometime. These eggs came from an acquaintance we know who lives a bit out of town. Been going well so far!
That so cool! Did you enjoy having a rooster? Or was it crazy? haha My dad had a couple of roosters on his farm and they were always cool, but we just don’t have the space or the legal authorization 😦
He was cool for the first year. Then he went crazy over winter and in spring started attacking our kids. He didn’t last long after that.
This text expresses interspecies empathy, everyday tenderness and a playful but honest reflection on the maternal instinct in animals. It invites us to see a hen not only as a source of eggs, but as a being with desires, affections and a way of living motherhood.