what's wrong with my chicken?

[mebcis]

My chicken won't come out of her box in the back of the coop. She doesn't seem to want to eat, she isn't laying and I don't know if she's sick or not. Some background.... She had a friend until 2 weeks ago and now she's alone. We just put 3 young chicks in a cage in the yard about a week ago (we had the chicks before we lost one of the big ones) and we were afraid she might be aggressive with them but she's not. She'll go to them but they won't have anything to do with her and we are treating her for leg mites. I think that's everything. I feel so bad for her.
Thanks in advance.
p.s. the outside coop was divided by wire but we took that down a couple of days ago and everything seemed fine.
Carol B.

 

[azygous]

When you go to pick her up off the nest, does she puff her feathers out, giving her the appearance of an angry badger? Does she squawk and try to bite when you do this? When she's off the nest, does she try to go directly back to the nest she was on?

Look at her breast feathers. Is there a strip of baldness down her breast bone? If the answer is yes to all these questions, your hen is broody and her hormones are telling her to sit on eggs for the next three weeks and hatch a family.