Do I have a bad broody?

[DonyaQuick]

I have a broody hen called Chungus. This is what has happened so far:

• In her early broody days, she tried to steal another hen's chicks on multiple occasions by offering food and trying to get them to come to her.
• Her first batch of eggs (all her own eggs) were duds.
• I couldn't break her broody behavior when that happened. I tried crating her and she just panicked in a horrible way.
• I gave her new eggs from another source. I started with 10, gave her 4 and put 6 in the incubator. Her eggs were all duds again so I got worried she was doing something wrong and decided to swap eggs out closer to hatch. Had a whole different thread on that mess.
• I ended up with only 3 developing eggs in the incubator. Still not sure if she had an incubating issue, so I only swapped one of her duds on lockdown day.
• Yesterday her egg appeared to have pipped (more on that in a bit) but the temperature and humidity in the house had plummeted overnight due to weird weather. I had a complete shrink wrap disaster; had to assist the hatch as it nearly stopped breathing a few times. I believe it was also a bit premature but it is alive and kicking now and I expect it to survive.
• Chungus is interested in the peeping sounds, but will suddenly turn aggressive towards the chick once she see's that's what the sound is coming from. She is snapping hard and broody screaming at it...so I have never let it go close enough that it could get hurt.

I don't know what to make of this situation. She seemed to want that other hen's chicks so badly before and was nice to them. I am perplexed that now she seems to think this new chick is an alien. I realize the whole situation is a mess on multiple levels with the chain of incubating issues, and perhaps things would have gone differently if she just hatched things under her normally. However, I'm honestly wondering now if she pecked the hole in that one egg I gave her, perhaps because the wiggling bothered her or something. One of the other two incubator eggs is hatching normally right now and the pattern of cracks is very different. I wish I had taken a picture of the first egg to compare but unfortunately I didn't.

I have my brooder set up so the chicks can be cared for one way or another. That's not an issue. But I need to unbroody my hen somehow and don't want to kill chicks trying to do it.

What do I do here? Given that last bullet point, should I even risk trying to put the chicks under Chungus before dawn and then wait? Or should I just yoink her eggs, hope she doesn't go into endless panick again, and use the brooder?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Brood the chicks yourself and break her.

https://the-chicken-chick.com/broody-breaker-when-hens-mood-to-hatch/

 

[DonyaQuick]

Brood the chicks yourself and break her.

https://the-chicken-chick.com/broody-breaker-when-hens-mood-to-hatch/

Have seen that article before and broke a different broody with the crate method earlier in the year. When I did it the one time with this hen, a few hours into the first day she suddenly started screaming, hyperventilating, and trembling. Her heat rate was through the roof and she wouldn't calm down for a long time. I am worried if I do the crate again she could have another of those episodes when I'm not around and give herself a heart attack or something.

Since she is still interested in the chick noises and even talking to the one in the brooder a room over, would there be any point setting her up eggless but next to the chicks so she can see/hear but not touch? Not to try to get her to adopt the chicks or anything, but rather wondering if that could convince her the eggs are done without another freak-out.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

You could try putting her in another pen near the chicks, especially if she's prone to have a full blown panic like that.

Minimize bedding, if she tries to sit, get her up and moving. If she tries to sleep on the floor or makeshift roost, move her to the roost.

I've had success breaking hens by just staying on top of keeping them up and moving about when I could. It was a pain and they sure didn't like me at the time either, but it worked.

 

[DonyaQuick]

You could try putting her in another pen near the chicks, especially if she's prone to have a full blown panic like that.

Minimize bedding, if she tries to sit, get her up and moving. If she tries to sleep on the floor or makeshift roost, move her to the roost.

I've had success breaking hens by just staying on top of keeping them up and moving about when I could. It was a pain and they sure didn't like me at the time either, but it worked.

Will do! I'll get her moved tomorrow morning.

 

[DonyaQuick]

This is the setup I got together this morning.

The chicks are not in the left enclosure permanently yet. I had them in there for a while this afternoon but they had issues figuring out to go under the heat plate. Out of view but in the same room I also have a "keep it simple stupid" brooder that's just a plastic tub with a heat lamp. The chicks are in the tub for a bit while I figure out what to do with the heat plate situation.

In the playpen enclosure on the right, my broody has a little roost made from a wood bar and two bricks, and she is using it regularly. The enclosure has shavings because she just started eating a ton right before I put her in; I didn't want her to do a broody poop and then smear it everywhere without something absorbent to help mitigate things. So far she is not trying to nest in the shavings.

The sad thing of all this is my broody is definitely still interested in the chicks. She talks to them and does the "food here" sound when I give her something tasty. I let her walk around the room while I had the chicks in the larger enclosure, and she seemed to want to go in with them - but she was calm about it, neither aggressive nor panicky. I guess she just can't deal with the sensation of things wiggling around under her. At any rate, she is weirdly ok with this no-touch arrangement so far.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Looks good.

Chicks will figure out the brooder plate quickly, they learn to run under it for a quick warm up just like they would with a broody. Otherwise, they'll just spend their time exploring.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Looks good.

Chicks will figure out the brooder plate quickly, they learn to run under it for a quick warm up just like they would with a broody. Otherwise, they'll just spend their time exploring.

I think I just put it in the wrong spot. For some reason they are nervous about the left half of the enclosure; maybe just too much of a big open space for them to feel safe venturing over there. They also mostly want to sit along the right wall near my hen, so I just shifted the plate over and now they're doing well with it, exploring and going back under periodically like you said.

My hen is making good progress I think. Her voice is going back up in pitch, she's wanting to run around more (that's clearly going to be my main challenge), and still no attempts at nesting. She still slips into "ork ork" and puffing up like a turkey sometimes. She did have two minor anxiety events, one at roost time last night and one first thing in the morning. Lots of pacing and trying to get my attention. She wanted to see where the chicks were - they were in the brooder at the time so I just had to lift her up to see inside and she calmed down. Now that they're where she can see them better I bet she won't have any more of those. Such a weird thing going on with this..."where are my babies?!" but also "ew don't touch me" when they want to run over to her.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Chungus spent about a week interacting with the chicks across a fence, which was weird, but I think that really did her good. No more panicking, just gradual return to her normal self. She definitely didn't want the chicks under her but really wanted to have other interactions with them, particularly showing them good things to eat. So, for that week she happily showed them how to eat all manner of things from tuna to banana and suet treats while the chicks conveniently had feed crumbles sprinkled just on the other side of the fence so they could come running and eat with her while still sticking to their main feed lol.

This weekend Chungus was finally more interested in hugs from me than in checking in on the chicks, so I took her back out to the flock. She immediately caused a bizarre cyclic structure in the pecking order that definitely increases the ambient level of chaos, but she has done that before and otherwise she is doing well. She saw the flock regularly for brief periods during her broodiness when I took her out to dust bathe and nobody seemed to have forgotten who that other chicken was, so there was no real need for a see-but-no-touch period.

So now I have two very friendly brooder babies that hop right into my hand when I open the door. They were never as attached to Chungus as they would have been if things had gone normally; they seem happy to accept me as a substitute. I think they definitely did appreciate having Chungus around for extra sense of security but they don't seem to be too upset by the change.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Sounds like things are going well!