Anybody here keep chickens? Does a brooding hen sit on the eggs

[hedgehog]

continuously for 21 days, or does she get up occasionally for some food and water?

[Arkansas Granny]

1. She will leave the nest for food and water, sometimes just once a day,

but she generally won't stay off the nest for very long. I haven't kept chickens for a long time, so I'm going from memory.

There's some good info here:

http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chicks.html

[hedgehog]

3. Thank you - All I was ever able to find is advice on keeping a hen

from going broody or on operating an incubator.

[hippywife]

2. We have all hens but one did go broody on us

and we let her for awhile. We took the eggs, they had gone bad because she hid them from us. But she continued to sit for a couple of weeks longer and did come out each day around noon to eat and drink.