7-month buff orpington goes broody?

[Fintechie]

My buff orpington has been regularly laying eggs for about two months now. Last two three weeks, she sat in the laying box longer (for about 2-3 hours) than she first started to lay. Today she's been there most of the day already. She is sitting still and looks very enjoying. Is she already broody? We don't have rooster. None of our eggs can be hatched.

Any suggestions to deal with the situation? or just let her be.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

If she doesn't sit in the nest around the clock except for a short daily foray for food, water, defecation and dust bathing - she's not broody.
If she does sit around the clock and is cranky, she is.
The tried and true method of breaking broodiness used successfully for centuries is a broody jail. It is an elevated wire bottom cage with a bit of food and water in it. The idea is that cool air needs to reach the abdomen. If they can plunk down on something solid and keep the belly warm, the hormone cycle won't be broken.
If you aren't planning on hatching eggs, the sooner you can break them the better. It won't prevent them from going broody in the future but in a day or two they are cured for now. If you let them out of jail and they start sitting again, back into jail they go.

 

[azygous]

The first step is to determine if she's going broody or if she has a reproductive issue. Behavior will give you important clues as to which it is.

A broody will be single minded about nest sitting. She won't be satisfied unless she's in the nest all the time. She may be clucking softly and repetitively and may puff up like an angry badger and screech and bite your hand if you try to remove her from the nest. You may find feathers missing along her keel bone littering the nest.

If she has a reproductive issue, she may be in pain and it can cause her to lose her appetite and be lethargic and to stand off to the side with her tail held low and flat. There may be a drip of fluid coming from her vent and swelling between her legs.

@ChickenCanoe has presented the time honored and most successful method to make the broody spell go away.

 

[aart]

These are my go-to broody signs:
Is she on nest most the day and all night?
When you pull her out of nest and put her on the ground, does she flatten right back out into a fluffy screeching pancake?
Does she walk around making a low cluckcluckcluckcluckcluck(ticking bomb) sound on her way back to the nest?
If so, then she is probably broody and you'll have to decide how to manage it.


If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, best to break her broodiness promptly.
My experience goes about like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest (or as soon as I know they are broody), I put her in a wire dog crate (24"L x 18"W x 21"H) with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop or run with feed and water.

I used to let them out a couple times a day, but now just once a day in the evening(you don't have to) 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. Or take her out of crate daily very near roosting time(30-60 mins) if she goes to roost great, if she goes to nest put her back in crate.

Chunk of 2x4 for a 'roost' was added to crate floor after pic was taken.

 

[Fintechie]

Thank you all for very helpful tips! Guess we'll make a cage as well. The hen inside didn't look happy for sure!

My husband found her sitting in the box around 7am already. She laid one egg today and sat in her box all day long except being carried by my husband, then she pecked some food and hurried back to her box. Haven't checked how slept at night... Will watch closely again tomorrow.

 

[RoosterML]

Thank you all for very helpful tips! Guess we'll make a cage as well. The hen inside didn't look happy for sure!

My husband found her sitting in the box around 7am already. She laid one egg today and sat in her box all day long except being carried by my husband, then she pecked some food and hurried back to her box. Haven't checked how slept at night... Will watch closely again tomorrow.

Don’t make a cage. Find fertile eggs from someone and put them under her. It’s a very nice site watching mama hen and chicks. I currently have a mama with her one week olds out in my second coop. Good luck with whatever choice you make.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Don’t make a cage. Find fertile eggs from someone and put them under her. It’s a very nice site watching mama hen and chicks. I currently have a mama with her one week olds out in my second coop. Good luck with whatever choice you make.

But does 1) OP want more chickens and 2) OP have room for more chickens? Also heading into winter isn't the most ideal time to be hatching.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Thank you all for very helpful tips! Guess we'll make a cage as well. The hen inside didn't look happy for sure!

My husband found her sitting in the box around 7am already. She laid one egg today and sat in her box all day long except being carried by my husband, then she pecked some food and hurried back to her box. Haven't checked how slept at night... Will watch closely again tomorrow.

Normally a broody hen has stopped laying eggs.
Staggered hatches are a waste of energy in nature.

 

[Fintechie]

She didn't lay an egg today.

 

[Fintechie]

okay, we made a cage and put her in the cage for the second day now. But we probably did it wrong last night to let her out of the cage back to the coop where she most likely sat in the box again. The cage doesn't easily go through the coop's entrance... We also let her out once or twice a day during which she ate and even fluttered her wings a bit with her pals, but soon after she went to her box sitting. Sigh...


So just to confirm, @aart, we should put her in the cage for two consecutive days and nights?