broody bird

[jgforbes]

help help i am new chicken raiser and one of my hens has gone very broody she wont leave the nest and is downright aggressive to the other hens and me for that matter. Her behavior is interrupting the laying in the whole flock. We do not have any roosters she is attempting to hatch an omlette! is there any way to curb this or help unaddle her?

 

[MustLoveHens]

Well, you can try to take her out of the nest box and bar her from it. Or another option is to place her in a wire cage. The wire is uncomforatable on chicken feet so a broody hen does not want to set for long.
I don't like to "break" a broody hen. I personally think it messes with their head and makes them depressed. Depending on her breed, she may well stay broody for months. I would seperate her out and give her a nest box in her own space and let her brood and hatch a few chicks. This will make her happy. You can post an add on craigslist for fertile eggs, or find a local breeder who would be willing to sell or give you some eggs for her to hatch. Or if you want a specific breed, then you can get eggs of that breed and have her incubate and hatch them out for you.

 

[Domestic_goddess]

I have 3 buff orpingtons who constantly go broody. First thing I always do to break them is take all thier eggs away, most of the time with no eggs they give up. (BTW..wear gloves) Second thing is to take them off the nest, every time you see them on there remove them again. Another idea is to put them in seperate pen with no nesting box. It can take up to two weeks sometimes, but always seems to work for me. I'm not sure I agree that it messing with thier heads and making them depressed, I've never experienced that. They get over it very quickly, I promise. Like mustlovehens said though, a fun option might be to find some fertile eggs.

 

[azygous]

My Black Cochin Morgan, 11 months old, just went broody today for the THIRD time! I heard Cochins were broody fiends, but this is getting ridiculous.

I had heard that you can break a broody real quick by dunking them into cold water or, if it's handy, a snow bank. Usually I break a broody in less than three days by using the wire cage method, but it takes time. So I tried the cold water dunk on Morgan. The theory is you want to cool down the broody's body temperature. Well, after two separate dunks, one for one minute, and the second for five minutes after the first one didn't phase her, Morgan wasn't any less broody. So much for that method.

My advice to you is to set up a cage with an open mesh floor, no bedding at all, and put a fan on the floor so it blows gently on her under-side. This will counter the broody urge better than anything, cooling her and keeping air flowing under her. Usually my broodies are broken by the third day. The test to see if they got un-broody is to turn them loose and see if they head right for a nest box. If they do, it's back into the broody cage for another day.

Morgan will spend the night in the garage with a fan blowing under her and tomorrow, she will spend the day in the broody cage, sans fan, inside the pen with her flock mates to keep her company and to discourage the urge to be alone in a dark place. Two days and two nights usually does it and she's back to normal. Works every time for me. Hope this works for you, too, should you choose this method.