Broody hen at 9 months old - breaks every egg

Livingthehenlife

Chirping
Apr 29, 2020
60
61
73
I have a black Australorp that has gone broody. It’s been 21 days since it started. I gave her 2 fertile eggs, she accepted them but eventually on day 20 they were crushed under her, I put them in the incubator after finding them crushed but neither survived. One tried to make it 3 days after, it couldn’t keep it up.

Next I gave her a baby chick. She literally crushed it under her body in less than two seconds. It *looked* 100% dead and I scolded Broody, showing her the *dead* chick but I kinda rocked back and forth pretty hard and rubbed its back and it sprung back to life. *(People say cats have 9 lives, then chickens have 10). He’s doing just fine now and we’ve named him lucky.

My question is.....
What the heck do I do with this girl? Just not mama material?
 
This is how I break them:
My experience goes about like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest (or as soon as I know they are broody), I put her in a wire dog crate (24"L x 18"W x 21"H) with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop or run with feed and water.

I used to let them out a couple times a day, but now just once a day in the evening(you don't have to) 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. Or take her out of crate daily very near roosting time(30-60 mins) if she goes to roost great, if she goes to nest put her back in crate.

Tho not necessary a chunk of 2x4 for a 'roost' was added to crate floor after pic was taken.
1590063797271.png
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom