Barred Rock Broody???

[hatchie42]

feed is expensive here and we usually buy the same stuff in the winter as we do in the summer and all the hens rarely lay in the winter and every spring they start back up again. its earlyier thatn usual, but this week almost all of them have started laying again except for 1 she is about a year old and has never acted this way and her sisters have not been acting this way but i really dont know. wont leave nest.... sometimes she is in it and when she is, she just sits there and reaches around and moves the straw around adds/takes some out, if someone else needs to lay she gets up, lets them lay, then sits back down. is she maybe prepping the nest to set? or does she think she is going to lay and just gets bored waiting for her egg to come out? we DO want her to brood if that helps any.

 

[StarLover21]

Hmm...the getting up part is kinda odd. How long has she been sitting there? She may be getting ready. If she doesn't go to roost tonight she's probably starting to be broody.

 

[hatchie42]

Hmm...the getting up part is kinda odd. How long has she been sitting there? She may be getting ready. If she doesn't go to roost tonight she's probably starting to be broody.

maybe she is trying to gather eggs to sit on? and she is on the nest as long as the others dont need to lay i have beeen out with them all day so ive watched her...i just hope she is..and also can refridgerated eggs be put back into the nest for her? just curious...

 

[Den in Penn]

If you have a choice don't refrigerate. The cold affects the fertility. Store them someplace not to hot or cold till your sure she is determined to hatch them.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Sounds like she's thinking about it, but not there yet.

 

[hatchie42]

Sounds like she's thinking about it, but not there yet.

i hope so!

 

[2hot2chicken]

If she is a hatchery bird then broodyness has probably been bred out of her. Hatcheries breed this out of their stock because when their birds go broody they loose money. They don't really know what to do. I have 3 hatchery BR girls and they are over a year old. I had 1 try to go broody a while back and it was so funny. She did some of the same things yours is doing. She wasn't agressive but when I would go near her she would just chirp at me. I hand raised her so that might be part of it. I gave her a couple of eggs and found that she had actually been steeling every other egg as well! I checked under her after 3 days of almost no eggs from my other girls and she had 14 eggs! Problem is she wasn't a good broody and kept leaving the nest. I got 1 chick from her clutch but I was suprised at that. She lost the rest along the way and the 1 chick she did get was deformed having extra toes. She also had problems during hatching and I had to remove the chick and hatch it in my brooder because she was pecking the shell off when it was trying to zip causing it to bleed pretty bad. She wanted to eat the shell. I will not let my BR girls have chicks anymore, I don't think they retain enough mothery instinct. But that is my personal opinion of my girls. Urs might be different though.