The above hen was sold to me by a local farm as a pullet. It started laying shortly after I bought it, and after only laying maybe two dozen eggs, it went broody. Since I have no rooster and do not want to raise chicks, I left her alone hoping she would break naturally, since she was sitten on the cold steel bed of my truck with no eggs. After a month, she would not break, so I penned her up for three days, during which time she stopped eating, so I let her go and covered the bed of my truck so she could not get back in it. She walked around broody and clucking for weeks until she eventually died of broodiness. I tried everything to save her, but she just refused to eat.
Please, no "Poor chicken just wanted to be a Mommie" comments! I did not come here for criticism of how I handled this situation. I have never seen a chicken that would act this way, so I did not know what was going to happen. Had I known, I would have handled things differently. Okay?
My question here is about this breed's behavior. Is this typical of this breed? Are Black Stars a Broody breed? I thought they were a production breed. I bought another Black Star with this one. She went broody as well after three months, but a day locked up in a pen and she broke. No problems. The difference is I locked her up immediately when I saw her go broody, whereas I let the other one try to break on her own, which has always been successful in the past with other breeds (No eggs equals no reason to keep setting).
So, I am wondering if Black Stars are a really broody breed? This is my first time owning them and I would like to hear first-hand experience from other owners that have had them for a long time.
