Broody hen hasn't pooped in almost a week

[Alicia Manolas]

Traditionally cluckies were force-stopped because we were desperate for the eggs they would otherwise be laying. It was life or death for us humans. These days, few of us will starve if a hen sits a 21 day cycle on some plastic eggs, you steal a few every night for the last few nights, and by day 21 nothing comes of it but one plastic egg left, her happiness she has fulfilled the natural urge, and her saying 'oh well' slight head scratching if she suspected there was supposed to be more to it than that.

If your flock is healthy and your hen is healthy, her being allowed to be happy, being permitted good mental health by you, wont damage her health is what I'm getting at, but it takes a huge paradigm shift on our parts, to move past "but we ALWAYS did it thus way"...

War-On-Cluckies need not be! I guess we only need to look at our history to know that 'because my Grandparents did it' is NOT always a great answer, to understand the paradigm shift in some poultry keeping. I'm not going to be treating my girls with leeches for 'ill-humours' either anytime soon, thanks Gran, lol!