Broody AGAIN..What to do?

[pgpoultry]

I didn't think much to the pile of feathers in the Brahma coop this morning, they are moulting.

I realised I hadn't seen Goldie Hen around for awhile, then found her tucked down low by the domestic oil tank......Waaaaaaaaaaaargh she said....broody again, no breast feathers. This is where she hatched a clutch in the summer...outside. So I picked her up and took her back to her feathery friends. A bit of frantic feeding and of she shot to go to sit on her erstwhile nest.

This hen is going for a record, broody for the fourth time and only 15 months old.

I have bought her into our storage room, cold floor etc. and hope to break the broodiness. My own boys are pretty inactive so late in the year, and I have never hatched chicks in the winter months.
What would others do? Break the broodiness, or, shudder to ask, try to buy some fertile eggs so late in the season?

It is getting cold here now. we are having frosts at night. Fertility of eggs I might buy may be low. This hen is particularly difficult to break from broodiness.....oh SO difficult.

Sandie

 

[Happy Chooks]

I have a solution to your problem. You should send her to me, with some fertile eggs, of course.

 

[Frannabelle]

I have two broody cochin bantams...they missed the entire summer sitting in the nest boxes, gave up late August and are back at it again. I've tried everything to break them! I just make sure I get them off a couple of times a day to eat and drink....
silly girls!

 

[pgpoultry]

So how have folk coped with a broody in the autumn/winter?

I've never had to face this before I had my Brahmas who seem to be perpetually broody?

Thanks,

Sandie

 

[Kittymomma]

I put mine in an extra rabbit hutch--1/2" x 1/2" hardware cloth bottom, food/water, and Nothing for a nest. It usually takes around 24-72 hours before they break and lay an egg. Sometimes they go broody again within a few weeks or a month, but it's an easy process to repeat if needed and they don't lose condition and become vulnerable to parasites like can happen when they're allowed to brood chronically.

 

[pgpoultry]

I let her out of the store room today and this is her two seconds later....back to broody spot

Sandie

 

[Frannabelle]

I keep getting my 2 broody girls out and they spend a few minutes eating, get a drink and right back at it!
I'm thinking the shorter days and cold will stop them soon....I hope anyway

 

[CMV]

I have a chronic broody. I broke her about 12 times last season using the wire cage method. I tried every method under the sun to keep her from going broody again, but no dice. This year I have just let her go. She always looks ratty and skinny and pale, but she's still alive... and broody. Some birds are just completely consumed by the mothering instinct. You can break them, but they keep reverting back to the broody state. I'd just let her go. She will snap when the season ends.

 

[pgpoultry]

So...I gave in.

Miserable hen...bought her indoors...perched on the window ledge all droopy tailed and sad.....so I bought some eBay eggs ( having sworn never again) and gave her meanwhile a cardboard box, a bit of grass and two rubber eggs....happy hen.

There's no fool like an old fool.....me


sandie