always broody....help

[villiams]

Hi guys.
I have 3 girls, a silver, gold and blue wyandotte.
Shortly after they started laying eggs my gold went broody followed quickly by my blue. After some time we put fertile eggs under both girls and they hatched 1 chick each.
My blue is a natural mother and is very doting and the gold kinda lost interest in mothering and left it up to the blue.
Now my chicks are off medicated chick feed and I had been counting down to the week to start collecting eggs to eat ... and my gold has gone broody again - so there goes the egg production ;-(
I have been collecting eggs daily and continue to do so and she just sits there on empty nest.
I have tried to put her bottom in water to cool her down - but she just went back to brood shortly after.
I am locking her out of the coop and then none of the other girls can get to the nests to lay.
I locked her out of the pen and left her to roam the garden alone but she looked very distressed.
I read that frozen veges can be put in the nest, so i tried with an ice block but she just got that to a nice hot temp pretty quick.
How long does broody behaviour go on for?
Any advice for helping her get over it?

thanks in advance

 

[RWise]

Broody buster! A wire cage to put her in until she chills out. No nest material/s, wire bottom, off the ground so she get air all around her. Time varies, some just a day or 2 will do, others take longer.

 

[aart]

Now my chicks are off medicated chick feed and I had been counting down to the week to start collecting eggs to eat

What kind of 'medication' is in the feed?

Broody buster! A wire cage to put her in until she chills out. No nest material/s, wire bottom, off the ground so she get air all around her. Time varies, some just a day or 2 will do, others take longer.

Yes, this^^^^!

If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, best to break her broodiness promptly.
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 couple of 4x4's right in the coop with feed and water.

I let her out a couple times a day(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.
Feed and water added after pic was taken.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Hi guys.
I have 3 girls, a silver, gold and blue wyandotte.
Shortly after they started laying eggs my gold went broody followed quickly by my blue. After some time we put fertile eggs under both girls and they hatched 1 chick each.
My blue is a natural mother and is very doting and the gold kinda lost interest in mothering and left it up to the blue.
Now my chicks are off medicated chick feed and I had been counting down to the week to start collecting eggs to eat ... and my gold has gone broody again - so there goes the egg production ;-(
I have been collecting eggs daily and continue to do so and she just sits there on empty nest.
I have tried to put her bottom in water to cool her down - but she just went back to brood shortly after.
I am locking her out of the coop and then none of the other girls can get to the nests to lay.
I locked her out of the pen and left her to roam the garden alone but she looked very distressed.
I read that frozen veges can be put in the nest, so i tried with an ice block but she just got that to a nice hot temp pretty quick.
How long does broody behaviour go on for?
Any advice for helping her get over it?

thanks in advance

Hi, welcome to BYC!

Broody is contagious.

I used wire bottom kennels with NO faster results than locking the birds out. The garden that you state, IS your best option so your other girls have access to nests. Yes she looks stressed, because she is. The cold water and ice crud is ALL JUST torture to me. Note, broody isn't a "choice" for them. It is hormonal. They don't control it, it controls them.

The time can vary according to the individual. Some of my gals will break in a couple days... while others have been in the ELEVATED BREAKER for 2 weeks! That nearly broke ME... and I now exclusively use locking them out of the run with the elevated wire kennel for night time use only. ALL my gals will brood air once they've gone broody.

Also... I never ever use medicated feed and it ISN'T needed despite the fact that some feed store make you think chicks will die without it. It is usually needed in factory or heavily crowded settings. I always have broody's, chicks, juveniles, roosters, and layers. The best feed choice for ME is either... unmedicated starter or Flock Raiser with oyster shell on the side for layers... never withhold an egg or worry about the wrong feed.. All get what they need... Perfectly? Maybe not... but it is VERY much a happy and convenient medium that works really well.

So... to be quite honest... if you don't want to deal with broody's, I would rehome to where they do need one... IF they were excessively broody. I'm OK with my gals that get broody once or twice per year. But some of my ladies are broody EVERY 3 weeks if I break them OR within 3 weeks of finishing raising a clutch... back to back to back!

One other option than dealing with the total sitting time and possible cockerels... I do enjoy adopting feed store chicks of another variety I might wanna try... after they sat for about a week and during the middle of the night. Younger is better but NOT more than 6 days old. It get's really hard after that to get the chick to attach to mum. Early on they chat with each other and learn their voice and know who to follow and stay near for safety and warmth. I have carried out many happy adoptions without failing YET.

My set up is basically the same as Aarts. Always good info from her! I also release my gals at the beginning and end of every day to check. Sometimes I don't even have to release because the behavior is very evident. But I still like to set them free. I also don't keep the kennel in the coop during the day. It has to go to the run or other sheltered location where lots of flock interaction is going on and they are in the thick of it.

Too many broody's is a good way to ruin a chicken keeping experience. On the plus side... your ladies feel nourished and secure!

Good luck!

 

[Patinas]

I just went through this with one of my hens and luckily didn't have to resort to dunking her belly in cold water which I was going to do yesterday as a last resort but she FINALLY snapped out of it.

It took almost two weeks. First I tried locking her out of the coop during the day but as you stated, that upsets the other hens because they can't get in to lay. At night I would move her off the nest and onto the roost but I had to make sure it was pretty dark or she would hop down and try and get back on the nest.

I finally put a cage in the coop and continued to lock her out of the coop during the day and then put her in the cage early evening and overnight. I did that for 4-5 days/nights.

Yesterday she came out with the rest of the flock to forage and never tried to get back in to get on the nest. Last night she finally got up on the roost with everyone else so I'm considering her "cured" for the moment.

What I've noticed is if she sees an egg in a nest, it's like her brain tells her "Hey! someone needs to sit on that egg so I guess it will be me!" I've been very diligent about collecting the eggs throughout the day so there aren't any in there for several hours. Yesterday, early evening, before they went in the coop I did the last check and there were no eggs when they went in so maybe that's why she got on the roost.

All I know is it has been an epic battle with this particular hen and I don't have a lot of faith at the moment that she won't go broody again quite easily.

I have two other hens I've easily broken from their broodiness by locking them out during the day and putting them on the roost at night but if you have a persistently broody hen, definitely do the wire cage method. Mine took more than 3 days to break her broody behavior but just keep at it and don't let her just sit on the nest for any length of time if at all possible.

Also, if at all possible, keep the cage in the coop so the rest of the flock can see her. My hen was getting picked on relentlessly because she had been broody for almost a week before I was able to deal with her due to being out of town. In just a week's time by her isolating herself in the nest box, when I locked her out, the rest of the flock acted like she was a new bird in the flock and pecked and chased her which only added to her stress. When I caged her in the coop, everyone settled down and they left her alone when she was locked out of the coop with the flock.

All you can do is stick to keeping her off the nest. In my case, my hen got so skinny I honestly wasn't sure she would pull through the ordeal. If she stays off the nest today I'll consider the battle over for now but will keep an eye on her and continue to collect eggs throughout the day.

One last thing...when she's in the cage, make sure she has water and feed available. Maybe add some electrolytes to her water. I went the extra step of offering tuna, meal worms and scratch to my broody girl just to make sure she was eating something with high protein since she was a bag of bones. I find it amazing that she would starve herself to the point that she did. She literally lost 3-4 lbs during the ordeal and had no breast meat on her. All I could feel was her breast bone when I would pick her up. I'm still a bit amazed she survived the whole thing.

Hope this helps! Best of luck to you!