I have a mixed flock & am new too the chicken game - my perkin bantam is roughly 6/7 months old & has gone broody.. I don't have a rooster & don't want too give her fertile eggs too 'mother'.. She layed - I was taking eggs from her once layed daily - & still she sits in the nesting boxes.. I have removed her daily from the coop too free range with the other girls - blocked off her nest etc.. She hasn't layed for 14 days now - my question is should I let her go?? Is this in anyway dangerous too her health etc?? She's eating and drinking once removed from the nesting boxes but I'm a 'new chicken mum' & am concerned for her health.. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
I hope you have a large wire dog crate; it's probably the best "broody buster." Prop it up on bricks so air circulates below it, give food and water but NO nesting material, so air blows on her belly. Hopefully within 2 or 3 days she will "break." There are gobs of threads here about breaking a broody. Here is an article: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/encouraging-or-discouraging-broodiness-in-your-hens
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 few bricks right in the coop and I would feed her some watered down crumble a couple times a day. I let her out a couple times a day 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.
