Broody hen questions

[writermom]

My adult cochin mix bantam hen has been producing an egg a day for the past few weeks - heading inside her house, squawking, laying the egg, and coming back outside. We collect the egg every afternoon. The past few days she's been staying in her nest box. I thought it was because it's been dark, cold, rainy, and snowy here lately. I collected the egg from underneath her two days ago, and she didn't seem overly happy about that. Yesterday she didn't lay an egg, but stayed in her nest box most of the day. Today she's been staying tight on the nest box again, and I started to worry that she was egg bound. I picked her up to examine her, and while I held her, she popped an egg out into my hand. It had a tiny bit of blood on it, but nothing alarming. She then worked the egg underneath her while sitting in my lap.

I put the egg in her nest because she seemed to want to keep it there. She immediately settled in on top of the egg. I know the egg is infertile - she's currently in the coop alone while I raise three hens to be her coopmates. Those birds will likely be moving into the coop in a few weeks or so.

I'm not sure what to do with the egg now. My hens are pets, so anthropomorphism runs deep here. With that in mind, I'm looking for advice on how to proceed.

1. Do I let her sit on a fake egg until she loses interest? (I don't want to leave her real egg with her since I don't want it possibly breaking and stinking up the hen house)
2. Is it a good idea to put an egg layer on a nest of fake eggs to give her a break from egg production every once in awhile?
3. I suppose I could put the word out that I have a hen that wants to sit on eggs and see if anyone wants me to have her to sit on their fertile chicken eggs and raise some chicks for them. Yes? No?
4. Should I just pull the eggs and let her deal with it?

Also, her poops have been huge - almost egg-sized! - the past few days. I'm used to picking up little poops, but suddenly I'm seeing these monster poop piles. Is it because she's sitting for extended periods of time and then getting up to poop?

What do you all think? And is there anything in this scenario that I should be concerned about?

Any advice or ideas are appreciated.

- Holly

 

[Kittymomma]

She's broody so you have a few choices:

Break her--If you don't want to give her fertile eggs or day old chicks to raise IMO it's best to break them. They don't take very good care of themselves while broody and some will sit well past 3-week trying to hatch something. A wire bottom cage that is off the ground enough to permit good airflow works well for this. The cage needs to be big enough to keep food/water in it and enough room for the hen to stand up and move a bit but don't put anything in it that can be used as a nest. She should only need to stay in it for a few days. If she heads back to the nest when you let her out, put her back in the wire cage for a couple more days.

Give her some fertile eggs--She'd be happy to hatch some chicks out for you, but will not lay until the chicks are hatched and 1/2 grown and there's not much point in it if you don't have room for little ones.

Give her some day-olds--Let her sit on fake eggs for a week or three and then slip some day olds under her at night. This is a good option if you're wanting to add a few more chooks to your flock, but don't want to hassle with brooders and intigration later. The downside of this is that it doesn't always work so you need to be prepared to brood the chicks yourself if she rejects them.