Broody hen

[Dirty Ankle Acres]

First off let me say i'm still new here so i hope i didn't look over a post already started about this, but we're in our 3rd year breeding Am's and have never had one go broody.....as of yesterday one of our bantam white am's has went broody........i was just wondering do am's typically go broody, especially this time of year with no feed change or anything? How are they as mothers raising chicks?

[Beth C]

My Ameraucanas have always been fairly broody. Every year I have a couple start sitting, usually during the summer, but this has been a weird year weather wise, and the birds have been just as weird. I got off to a late start because about 2 weeks after they started laying they all stopped w/o warning for 2 months. Now I still have birds laying, which I've never had in October, and one broody, which I've also never had this late in the year. We had a very mild summer - the first I can remember that we didn't have a single triple digit day, and everyone molted early, so maybe that's why?

[Dirty Ankle Acres]

Very well could be, with the weird weather and early molt it stopped most of my varieties of Am's from laying except my white bantams and my lavender bantams they laid steady through their molt......but the weather seemed to contribute to a lot this year so i think you may be right at one point this summer we had 9 broodies (ending up with hens that hatched between 10-22 chicks each) ofcourse none we're am's but that was highest number of broodies we've ever had too