Help is my chicken gonna be ok?

taunya1979

Chirping
Jun 7, 2016
134
11
76
So my Lucy girl has been laying one egg a day for about 3 weeks she goes in takes about 30 minutes or so then prances on out with a pretty greenish egg in the nest well here's my issue yesterday she was laying in the nesting box all day she came out and my other ran up layed an egg real quick and scooted out well my Lucy went back in there but did not lay an egg just stayed there all day panting a bit but just staying there n she gets mad if I try to take her out. She did run out this morning for a few minutes then went back in to the nest box. What's wrong with her? Is she going broody? Is she egg bound help?
 
Did she spend the night in the nest box? Has she been on the perch every night up until now? If she's sitting the nest 24/7, she might be broody. Does she puff her feathers, but otherwise squish down and look like a puffy pancake? Does she have a "different" sounding cluck? If so, she may be thinking about being broody. You will then need to decide what to do about it. You can:

1. break her
2. give her fertile eggs to hatch
3. let her sit on dud eggs for close to 3 weeks, and then give her chicks to foster.
 
Yea it was weird she aways roosted before a few days ago then I'm like there ya go girl you got the idea nice comfy bedding? (How do I clean it if she won't leave) and yes she's puffing up irritated like and kinda makes a weird sound. I don't want anymore chickens and we don't have mature roosters just two about 8 weeks old or so idk they haven't crowed fully yet. She's definetly puffin up at us lol. Idk why to do how do I break her?
 
If you want to break her of being broody put her in a medal cage elevated off the ground with no bedding in it. Give her food and water and she should give up the broody in a couple of days. When you get her out of the cage and if she goes back to the nesting box put her back in the cage again.
 
If she's broody, she is not laying. She will resume laying when she's done being broody. Some folks have tried a cold water bath with good results. Cooling the hen's chest/belly is what shifts the hormones out of broody mode.
 
Ok maybe I'll try those first. I just want her happy lol she's a great layer and so lovey my son adores her.
 
I let me Little Hen just sit for a week and keep collecting the eggs out of the coop. Also take the fake eggs out. She eventually gives up.
She goes broody about every 2-3 months. I figure about once a year I'm going to give her more eggs to set and then give away the peeps.
 
If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, best to break her broodiness promptly.
The cold water dip is a bit drastic, IMO, but in a hot summer might be the best solution if you don't have a cool, shaded place to put a broody breaker cage.
You'll have to handle her despite her crankiness, get her with both hands holding wings to her body and pull her out of nest.
Might want to wear gloves and long sleeves as she might try to bite, hopefully after handling her a few times she'll get used to it and calm down.

I used a broody breaker crate and my experience went like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop and I would feed her some crumble a couple times a day.

I let her out a couple times a day(you don't have to) and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two.
Water nipple bottle added after pic was taken.
 

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