Need help breaking broody hen!

Tanith BHH said:

I'm no expert, but my hen lost weight rapidly, even though I took her out to eat and drink twice a day, her comb went pale and when I managed to break her she seemed to have cramp in her legs, she was very weak and could hardly walk. She was only in there for a little over three weeks, and she had no intention of stopping. I think broodies who are not quite so serious about is as my Nutmeg would be OK though, but I heard of a hen who starved when she went broody..

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It sounds like you chicken was suffering from some disease, parasite, or illness when she went broody. Loosing weight and comb going pale sounds like she was getting her blood sucked out by parasites while she was sitting on the nest and not moving about.

A healthy hen will not come to any harm from being broody - and they will never starve. You do not EVER have to take them off the nest to eat or drink. They do it themselves. They always choose the times when no one is around and there is no disturbance. They will rush off, have a massive stinky poop, fill up on food and water, and go back to the nest.

They are really sneaky about leaving the nest if people or animals are about. This goes back to their wild instincts, where if a predator saw them leaving the nest unguarded their eggs would be quickly eaten.

If you OPs hen is broody you can just leave her - but I think its better to use my easy breaker technique so things go back to normal:

1. Put the hen in a cage / crate, which has a wire bottom (not a solid floor).

2.. Add a roost , food and water.

3. Keep the crate out of site of her nest or you can cover the side that she can see her nest from.

4. After 4 days let her out - she should be back to normal.

TIP. You can block off her nest box, in case she gets the urge to go back into it after you let her out. You only need it blocked a couple of days.

xshoshin said:

So, I'm wondering...since I currently have a broody Cochin...is there a real problem just letting them be broody? Is it unhealthy? I don't mind if she doesn't lay for a while and we have another nest box for the rest of the flock. I'm inclined to just let her have her little fantasy unless its detrimental to her well-being. What say the experts?

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nah.... there is nothing wrong with letting her be broody.... not unhealthy at all. some birds are just that broody and she will get off to eat and drink so no risk of her starving or going thirsty. as long as you don't mind there is no problem with leaving her to do what she wants. you could always sneak a few eggs under her and get some babies since she is determined anyway.

jak2002003 said:

It sounds like you chicken was suffering from some disease, parasite, or illness when she went broody. Loosing weight and comb going pale sounds like she was getting her blood sucked out by parasites while she was sitting on the nest and not moving about.

A healthy hen will not come to any harm from being broody - and they will never starve. You do not EVER have to take them off the nest to eat or drink. They do it themselves. They always choose the times when no one is around and there is no disturbance. They will rush off, have a massive stinky poop, fill up on food and water, and go back to the nest.

They are really sneaky about leaving the nest if people or animals are about. This goes back to their wild instincts, where if a predator saw them leaving the nest unguarded their eggs would be quickly eaten.

If you OPs hen is broody you can just leave her - but I think its better to use my easy breaker technique so things go back to normal:

1. Put the hen in a cage / crate, which has a wire bottom (not a solid floor).

2.. Add a roost , food and water.

3. Keep the crate out of site of her nest or you can cover the side that she can see her nest from.

4. After 4 days let her out - she should be back to normal.

TIP. You can block off her nest box, in case she gets the urge to go back into it after you let her out. You only need it blocked a couple of days.

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Yes, but she definitely didn't have parasites or an illness she is still perfectly healthy. I de-mite and lice my chickens every week and check for eggs and mites/lice whenever I handle them (which is everyday, I only have six for eggs and pets), and whilst she was broody I dusted her every couple of days, as she would not dust bathe. . A quick note is that the bird that starved was NOT my bird, either! And my hen wasn't coming out to eat or drink because I felt her crop and it was completely empty every time.
oh, and I also checked for worms.
Good idea about the nestboxes.

We recently had to deal with our first broody hens (2 in rapid succession). I wasn't crazy about the idea of locking them in a crate for a few days so I decided to try controlling access to the nest boxes.

We only have 5 hens, so it's not too difficult to know who has layed for the day. Also, our nest boxes are plastic bins, so it is easy to remove them once every one has made their daily deposit.

What I did was, first thing in the morning I would let them out of the run and push the door to (it's normally open when they're out) so that everyone is in the yard away from the coop and nests. Then I check periodically every 15 or 20 minutes to see if anyone is waiting to get back inside for egg-laying duty. I let the egg-layers in, but not the broody. Since we have so few chickens, it doesn't take to long for all of the non-broodies to take care of business for the day. Once I have all of my eggs, I take the nest boxes out and store them in the shed until early the next morning and allow everyone free access. I also have a coop wall that lifts entirely open, so I prop that open to keep the coop from feeling too cozy.

Once I did this, both of my broodies were sleeping on the roost the first night (since they had no nest boxes to snuggle in). They seemed to want to go straight to the nest boxes once they were brought out in the morning, so I made sure they were not allowed in the coop until the nest boxes were put away in the afternoon. The first one took about three days to break, and the second one snapped out of it in two days.

This technique definitely wouldn't work if you have a larger flock. But since I only have several hens, I wanted to try a more gentle method than crate confinement first.

xshoshin said:

So, I'm wondering...since I currently have a broody Cochin...is there a real problem just letting them be broody? Is it unhealthy? I don't mind if she doesn't lay for a while and we have another nest box for the rest of the flock. I'm inclined to just let her have her little fantasy unless its detrimental to her well-being. What say the experts?

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For me,I don't want my hen to be broody because I don't want anymore chickens,54 is enough.lol.

xshoshin said:

So, I'm wondering...since I currently have a broody Cochin...is there a real problem just letting them be broody? Is it unhealthy? I don't mind if she doesn't lay for a while and we have another nest box for the rest of the flock. I'm inclined to just let her have her little fantasy unless its detrimental to her well-being. What say the experts?

Click to expand...

Make sure they are eating. Despite this, your hen will still loose a lot of weight. I know my broodies do. However, I never try to break my broodies, I just let them be. Sometimes I will lock them out of the coop to get dome exercise though.

Have to say my girls seem much happier now that they aren't broody. They had been crabby, irritable....could it be chicken PMS??

Tanith BHH said:

Yes, but she definitely didn't have parasites or an illness she is still perfectly healthy. I de-mite and lice my chickens every week and check for eggs and mites/lice whenever I handle them (which is everyday, I only have six for eggs and pets), and whilst she was broody I dusted her every couple of days, as she would not dust bathe. . A quick note is that the bird that starved was NOT my bird, either! And my hen wasn't coming out to eat or drink because I felt her crop and it was completely empty every time.
oh, and I also checked for worms.
Good idea about the nestboxes.

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Why do you de-mite and lice you chickens EVERY WEEK?!!!

Did you consider dusting you brood every 2 days with mite powder was what made her sick?

Giving the hens that much of pesticide all the time is going to harm them in the long run.

You only need to dust them once in the spring and once in the fall (unless they have actually got a parasite problem that you can visually see).