Broodiness affect on other chickens

[CanadaEh]

Can blocking nest for the night (by hanging empty feed bag over the entrance) for 2 nights in a row to break one broody hen can cause stress in other chickens - enough to drop egg production from 6-7 to 3-4 out of 7 hens? Alternatively, can one hen's broodiness by itself cause slowing in egg laying of other hens? If so, how much time it usually takes to get back to normal? The broody hen is no longer broody.

 

[Ribh]

Yep. Just doing this for the 2nd time in a month. I have 3 Barred Rocks & 2 Australorps. I have a Rock constantly going broody on me & she affects the 2 other Rocks. My egg production drops from 5 a day to 1~2 a day. It's a pain. Production is usually back to normal in a day or 2 once she stops brooding.

I block the nests @ night & turf my broody out of the pen during the day. Once the others are let out I block access to the pen. Food & water is available outside the pen.

 

[Chickens are cool]

2 of my hens are broody, and yes I do find that having broody hens slows the egg production down by some. I have found locking them up in a separate enclosure (one at a time) for 2 days with water only and NO food has been taken as effective because it gives them something else to think about and after 2 days in the coop they should go back to normal routine.

 

[Chickassan]

It can take a couple weeks for a broody to get back to work. And broodiness is contagious at least in my experience so your egg decline may not be as much stress as your other ladies thinking of going broody themselves.

 

[CanadaEh]

would it be less "contagious" if I allowed the broody to sit so other hens would think that brooding part is taken cared of and is nothing to worry about?

 

[Savager]

I've only had one broody hen who was broken after a night spent with the ducks. After that it was a few weeks before she started up again for about a week then decided to molt and hasn't started again. Everyone else seemed to lay normally, except that my broody decided to nest in the middle of the tray in the coop, so she recieved some pecks for that.

 

[Mimi13]

I think that breaking a broody is best accomplished by placing the broody’s cage out of sight of the others. However, that’s not always possible. I’m not certain that withholding food is in the hen’s/pullet’s best interest, though.

But, I gave in to the bossy broody tonight. I was going to set eggs in the incubator next week (my first time ever) simply because I just couldn’t wait until spring, but I placed her back in the nest tonight with 8 or 9 eggs. (The reason so many is because they all may not be fertile.) She was in broody heaven. Now I’m excited. January 11th can’t get here fast enough.