Broody hen making others lay eggs elsewhere

[SparrowSong]

My alpha hen went broody last week, and I noticed that the other hens seemed to have stopped laying. However, today I discovered they've been laying in the goat's dog-gloo house, which is way up under the deck and difficult (for me) to get to.
Any ideas to get them laying in the coop again? Right now the chickens and goat share a yard, and while I can block the larger goat out of the hen house, I can't block the chickens out of the goat house.

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

You could remove or break your broody hen, depending on whether you want her setting, but you might have to block or remove the bedding in the goat house to help retrain them. Do you have more than one nest box? It can also help to put fake eggs where you want your hens to lay.

 

[SparrowSong]

I do want her sitting on the eggs, and we have 6 nesting boxes, so it's not like there's no room. I imagine she is intimidating the other hens, so they're laying elsewhere.

Not sure I want to take out the goat's bedding (he is an only goat until late spring, so he has no one to cuddle and keep warm with.) I just want the hens staying out of his bedding.

I may just keep all the chickens locked up in the coop/run for a while to let them get re-adjusted to laying there. If Alpha hen will let them, LOL.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Sounds like a good plan.

 

[aart]

Locking them in coop is a good idea.
Put fake eggs and/or golf balls as 'bait' in the other nests....helps to 'spread the love'.
Broody may just have been in favorite nest...were other nests used at all?

If you want to actively break your broody, you could try this:

Water nipple bottle added after pic was taken.

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 couple of 4x4's right in the coop and I would feed her some 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.