5 Month old won't stop brooding

[Lolas mom]

Thank you -
I am working on finding a cage. I'll keep you posted. She is out now and eating like it's her job.
Thanks again!

 

[Ciqala]

Urgh, I just went through this with one of my speckled sussex, which was my first time dealing with a broody hen. I felt bad putting her in a crate, so for a week just locked her out of the coop and was quick to get the other hens' eggs out. Her broodiness didn't seem to me like it was constant, if I shooed her off of where ever she was she'd go do "chicken things". But it didn't work. I finally broke down and put her in the crate, for us it was in the house. I had her in it for 2 days. Today was her first full day back out with the flock and she did great, I even left the coop open and there was no broody behavior. I think we finally have it beat. I regret not putting her in the crate sooner.

I admit it was tempting to let her hatch some of the fertile eggs from our other flock with the roosters {she's in with a crippled hen, so no roos}, maybe next Spring lol.

 

[Lolas mom]

So, here's the latest. I borrowed a large bird cage from a friend and put Delanie in the penalty box. During the day, she has been less and less puffy and has cut down on her weird clucking. For two nights she slept in the bird cage and wasn't very pleased. Yesterday, she stayed in the cage as long as the other birds stayed in the coop (until Lola the 2:00pm egg layer finally layed her egg). She was acting completely normal and didn't even act like she wanted back into the coop. Then... I heard some very loud clucking outside and rushed out to find a sharp shinned hawk (the first time I have ever seen one around here) in the apple tree above the coop and a pile of black and white striped feathers on the ground. I was frantic! I scared the hawk off and started looking for my birds. I finally found the one that got "hit" by the hawk in some very thick fitzer shrubs and I thought she was dead. When I pet her, she started moving and crept out of the shrubs and ran to her favorite hiding place. Of course, It was Delanie! As if her week hadn't been bad enough! I went to her hiding place and was able to coax her to me and picked her up and checked her out. I couldn't find any real injury (other than to her psyche!) and put her in the coop for safe keeping. She went to the nesting box and then hopped right back out. I tried for quite a while to get the other two into the coop, but they were freaked out and would have none of it. After a while, I decided to let the one in the coop out and stayed outside with the girls - even though they had taken some serious cover for the rest of the evening. When they were ready to roost, I was waiting to see what Delanie would do. She was the last one to hop in and hopped right up on the roosting bar. I guess she was either done brooding, or scared straight!