Broody hen?

[HenOnAJuneBug]

Some folks leave broody hens to do their thing, although I think its fair to say that possibly more members prefer to break their broodiness. Type "broody buster" in the search box and you will see what to do. Whilst getting her laying again is not important to you - she will lose considerable condition whilst she is broody and this is not the best for her health. The sooner she is up and about, doing her normal thing, the better IMO.

OK thanks. I'll try to break her.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It’s not a dumb question at all, the dumb thing is not asking. We all have to start somewhere.

A little bit about them being broody. They stop laying when they go broody for a couple of reasons. First, since it takes about 21 days of incubation for them to hatch, any egg laid after she starts being broody isn’t going to hatch. Plus a hen does not eat or drink that much while she is broody so she needs to conserve her nutrients and energy to live off of, not waste it laying useless eggs.

Before a hen even starts to lay she stores up excess fat. If you ever butcher a hen, whether she is laying or not, you will see that she has a lot more fat than a male, cockerel or rooster. That fat is what a hen mostly lives off of while broody. A broody hen will lose a lot of weight while she is broody since she doesn’t eat or drink much. But that is just fat put there for that purpose.

But eventually that fat runs out. Some hens will break from being broody at that point but some don’t. I think you are making the right decision to break her form being broody if you don’t give her fertile eggs to hatch. I use the cage with a wire bottom method. Give her food and water but nothing for her to use as a nest and leave her in there for three full days. Usually that’s enough to break them.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

It’s not a dumb question at all, the dumb thing is not asking. We all have to start somewhere.

A little bit about them being broody. They stop laying when they go broody for a couple of reasons. First, since it takes about 21 days of incubation for them to hatch, any egg laid after she starts being broody isn’t going to hatch. Plus a hen does not eat or drink that much while she is broody so she needs to conserve her nutrients and energy to live off of, not waste it laying useless eggs.

Before a hen even starts to lay she stores up excess fat. If you ever butcher a hen, whether she is laying or not, you will see that she has a lot more fat than a male, cockerel or rooster. That fat is what a hen mostly lives off of while broody. A broody hen will lose a lot of weight while she is broody since she doesn’t eat or drink much. But that is just fat put there for that purpose.

But eventually that fat runs out. Some hens will break from being broody at that point but some don’t. I think you are making the right decision to break her form being broody if you don’t give her fertile eggs to hatch. I use the cage with a wire bottom method. Give her food and water but nothing for her to use as a nest and leave her in there for three full days. Usually that’s enough to break them.

Thanks. I'm going to experiment with breaking her by repeatedly removing her from the nest and carting her off a couple of hundred feet so that she has to get some exercise that will help to burn off that fat. I just did it and she didn't return to the nest. (of course during the walk we had a long talk about springtime being a better time to go broody, and promised her her own small coop for her family then).

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

Here's an update.

I'm still working with her to get her off of the nest. I'll frequently remove her and carry her off. She doesn't immediately return to the nest, but eventually does.

Her poop is really goopy.

I found a concerning spot on her chest bone. It looked like a scab about 1" wide and 2" long. The feathers were missing around the area. I wiped it with a wet rag, and it wiped off. There doesn't seem to be any skin damage, but it now has a yellow tint to it. It make have just been dried poop. Would that cause yellow staining? Do chickens loose feathers like that when they sit on the nest for a long time (like bed sores), or would caked poop cause feather loss?

Someone told me that my cat playfully harassing the hens would stop when a broody hen went after her. Sure enough the 'broody' hen stood still when the cat walked up (they usually squawk and run away, which the cat likes), then growled and face-fronted the cat when it got too close. The cat said "ruh-roh and walked away.

She doesn't act unwell, just hypnotic at times, which she quickly snaps out of when I take her out.

So all signs appear to indicate that she is indeed broody.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

I eventually broke this hen of her broodiness. She did the same thing this spring, but unfortunately was sitting on an empty nest. I eventually broke her and she's back to normal.

I do have another broody hen who sat on about 5 eggs for a couple of weeks, then moved to another nest with eggs. And now today she has changed nests again. Can anyone tell me what's going on? I tried to scramble the eggs from the first nest to give back to them, and most of them had embryos.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

I think I may have figured out why the broody hen changes nests. She gets up to eat and another hen gets in her nest to lay an egg. Then the broody hen gets into another nest and then just stays there..

 

[nparks]

My broody hen was doing the same thing! I wanted to leave her in the coop with the rest of the hens but every other day I would find her on a different nest. I ended up moving her to dog crate by herself before giving her eggs to sit on. It's been working out great. She hasn't gotten off expect to poop.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

The broody hen parked herself in the nest right next to her nest that another hen occupied. She kept peering around the corner at her old nest and making some disapproving sounds. I moved the interloper into another nest and put the broody back into her nest. She seems happy now.