5 month old cochin broody? broody patch, but still laying

[rcstanley]

Summary: My 5 month old cochin pullet is still laying, but she's starting to stay in the nesting box and has plucked a broody patch. A few minutes ago I found her trying to hatch the wooden egg we keep in the nesting box. I don't want her to brood yet. Is she broody? Is it too soon to try and break her broodiness?

Long Version: I'm new to chickens. My 5 month old bantam cochin pullet started laying a few weeks ago. She started spending a long time in the nesting box. I've been suspicious she's thinking about going broody. It's fall though, and I don't need any more chickens right now. She is still laying though. I took her out of the nesting box and she made herself a nest in the run and was sitting on it till I chased her off. She'll still come out for dinner though. She's also plucked herself a broody patch and was sitting on the wooden egg in the nesting box. Is she broody? Is it too soon to try and break her of it?

 

[aart]

I'd wait until she tries to sit a nest for 3 days and 3 nights straight, hisses, growls and flattens out when you take her eggs and then you'll be sure she's broody....then you can begin to break her. If she's been sitting all day and you put her on the ground she may well sit down and flatten out right where you set her....you can prompt her to move and she might but soon goes right back to the nest.


My experience went like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a few bricks right in the coop and I would feed her some watered down crumble a couple times a day.

I let her out a couple times a day and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two.