Question about broodiness

[Johnboy78]

Paulette, my chicken who went AWOL, is broody.
This is my guess based on some experienced comments here.

She came out from under the deck just now, I hadn't seen her in two days.
(I'm not always in the backyard so I don't know how often she emerges)

She seems very jittery, puffing out her feathers and sticking her tail up.
Starved too, eating fast, probably back under the deck by now.

She's been at this almost a week.
The eggs in the inaccessible nest under the deck will never hatch.
How long do they keep this up? (She's a hatchery red shouldered Yokohama
and I have a small mixed backyard flock)

I've got tenex chicken wire and the underside of the deck is partially
blocked. Sometime in the next few days I'll cut the stuff to size and
then I'll be ready when she comes out, stick her in the run, staple it up,
and maybe that will help end it. But other than that, do they come out of it by themselves?

 

[TwoCrows]

If she decides to stay broody, she may set on them for the entire term of 21 days till she figures out the eggs are not going to hatch. I don't have a rooster and when I catch one acting broody, I break them early on of it, as once they get started, it is hard to get them to stop being broody. And if there are no fertile eggs, they don't need to be going off their feed and drinking less.

When you block her out of there, she will panic for hours or even a day over it. So you might want to move her some place else to pout about it where she can't see her nest. She will come out of it quicker.