HELP MY CHICKENS ARE NOT BREEDING

Rhode Red · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:56 pm

What method of hatching do you use - Incubator or broodies?

Do you mark the eggs to know which pen the eggs/breed are?

If you are using an incubator you may need to check it is maintaining the correct temperature and also humidity. Do you candle the eggs at -10 days?

Personally I would not be running the different breeds together at any time. You may gey too many x breeds.

Keep providing you answers to the questions and eventually the APF team will come up with a solution.

Waywood chicken farm · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:04 pm

We are just using the hens but they don't get to that stage but the cross breds stay in and they sit on the eggs but the get off. I try putting one group out at one time then them all going out at the same time. I am getting an incubator. we ordered one before the flooding and it couldn't get to us.

Roova · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:08 pm

If you had an area you could put a broody so they could sit on the eggs undisturbed you might have better luck?

Waywood chicken farm · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:15 pm

I will try that tomorrow morning

timewarp · **Joined:** Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:13 pm **Posts:** 385

are you actually getting any hens going broody ? maybe you could pick a few trios out and place them in breeding pens ? at breeding season ! its not worth putting eggs under a hen thats not broody , so 1 or 2 broody pens could be the go . cheers n beers gary

Waywood chicken farm · **Posted:** Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:35 am

We get maybe two or three broody that are xbreds and maybe one out of the pure breds but they run off.I will try anything to get them breeding.

Roova · **Posted:** Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:33 pm

Its not the right time of year to be breeding, so you're probably going to have trouble either way. Its not natural for birds to be breeding in the extreme heat of summer. Im not sure what you mean when you say your broodies are running off, they normally want to stick in one spot and not move :-|

Waywood chicken farm · **Posted:** Fri Mar 11, 2011 7:26 pm

They just run. They might sit for five days and run off. I don't know why. I have had chickens for the past two years and they still don't breed for some reason.I get so upset when other peoples chickens have babies.

Roova · **Posted:** Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:01 pm

Have you checked them and treated them for external parasites? Having mites for example can annoy them so much they can't bear sitting.

Also some breeds are less inclined to go broody so even though you get an individual bird who does, they may not be able to last the distance. You might be better off trying to get hold of birds with a strong broody drive like the wyandottes and use them as your incubators.

Only you know what your setup is like to determine why they are runninng off. Are they being harrassed by the rooster or other birds trying to get into the nestbox with them? Are they breeds which don't go broody often and don't last the distance? Do they have parasites of some kind bothering them? Do they have clean food and water available to them?

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