Broody hen cure???

[GretasFlock]

So, I have my first broody hen. She is a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte/White Leghorn mix. Yep, she was the "oops" chick of the feed store, apparently.

Anyway, she went broody a couple weeks ago. After a week had passed, I started trying to snap her out of it, with little success. So far I have tried cold baths and just removing the eggs and hen from her nest multiple times a day, all this week, with no luck. She broke an egg sitting on it yesterday. She doesn't come out of her coop all day except when I take her out, and I am worried she is not getting enough to eat. I have been keeping feed in the coop for her, but she has pretty much completely stopped her intake of greens/insects/scraps. She is also starting to look really ragged, tail feathers split and left unkempt and the rest of her feathers just looking dirty. She is molting downy feathers from her chest and belly as well. She and her flock are free ranged in our yard, so I would be hesitant to cage her because it would be such a dramatic change. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Mountain Peeps]

If you have already tried taking eggs out and baths, your next options are to put a frozen water bottle in the nest under her, block of the nest, remove the nest bedding, put her in a dog crate with nothing to sit on. It's not healthy for a chicken to be broody with non-fertile eggs so try these ideas to beak her so she can be back out eating, drinking and being a chicken again!

 

[GretasFlock]

If I was going to do the water bottle thing, would she just move to another nest? Would my other 5 start laying outside the coop?

I have a crate I can put her in if I have too.

 

[Mountain Peeps]

If I was going to do the water bottle thing, would she just move to another nest?  Would my other 5 start laying outside the coop? 

I have a crate I can put her in if I have too.

To insure that the hens don't start laying elsewhere, I would put her in a crate. But make sure that the crate is INSIDE the coop so that when she is done with her bloodiness, the rest of the flock don't take her as a new chicken.