Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Our beautiful golden bantam has gone broody. Chickens who go broody lay a 'clutch' of eggs, which can be anything from five or six to nearer 20 and then they stop laying and start to incubate them (keep them warm so they develop into chicks). We collect our eggs every day (at least twice a day) as we want to be able to control any hatching out of chicks by our hens. Removing the eggs like this can sometimes stop chickens becoming broody because they never get to the stage where they have a 'clutch' and so stop laying.
The bantam laid her last egg on Sunday but now she just keeps sitting on whatever eggs get laid each day, moving from nestbox to nestbox to do so. Of course for an egg to hatch out it needs to be fertile (i.e. the chicken should have been mated by the cockerel) but until the hen starts to incubate the eggs, we don't know if they are fertile or not. Our cockerels have all been busy mating but some chickens may get missed or the mating may not be successful. Eggs can remained fertile for up to two weeks after they have been laid but the fresher the better and success is more likely if the eggs are just a few days old. It is amazing that an egg can remain fertile like this and only when it gets warmed up by a broody hen or in an incubator will it actually start to grow.
As this bantam seems quite determined to remain broody, we are probably going to give her a few eggs to hatch. We will need to set her up her own little house away from the rest of the birds though so that when the chicks hatch she can look after them in peace and quiet. Watch this space.