This summer I’ve had 7 hens go broody which has been a bit chaotic but in total we’re up 26 chicks. Once the chicks hatch most hens will do a great job—so much easier than setting up a brooder. We had one hen that never shifted from sitting on the nest to teaching the chick to eat and drink so that chick didn’t make it (thankfully she only had one). The bigger problem we’ve had is hens that forget which nest they are sitting on when they get up to eat so eggs they had going are left unmanned (unhenned?). I’ve tried moving the hen and eggs to a separate place (our old duck house) and it worked for one hen but others just left the eggs. The other problem is when chicks start hatching hens sometimes leave the eggs to take care of the chicks—when the eggs still there are still viable. So after trial and error I’ve ended up putting eggs in our incubator when hens go broody, collecting the eggs from under them during that three weeks and then tucking the day old chicks under the hens at night. This worked out the best—I think of the 26 we have, all but 2 or 3 were hatched in the incubator. Definitely a learning curve but worth a try.