Broody hen

[Oolala]

nearly two weeks ago my sussex hen went broody but I managed to get her out if it after one week, but have had no eggs since. She is a young hen and had only just started laying four weeks before.How long will it be before she starts to lay again. She was the best layer, super large eggs each day and double yolks each time, also is it normal for this type of chicken, I dont want her worn out laying such great eggs.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

If you break them right away they sometimes will start back up in 1-3 weeks. So the sooner you break them, the shorter the break, generally.

 

[Oolala]

Hopefully I will not have to wait much longer then, thank you.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There are a couple of things that go on with a broody hen. Before a hen starts to lay she builds up excess fat. If you butcher hens as well as roosters it's amazing how much more fat you get from a hen in comparison. This excess fat is mainly what a broody hen lives on so she doesn't have to spend a lot of her time off the nest eating. The longer she is broody the more of that fat she needs to replace before she starts laying again.

Also when a hen goes broody her body makes some adjustments to her internal egg making factory. The ova stop growing into egg yolk size and her internal plumbing will sort of dry up. To start laying again she has to grow some of those ova to yolk size and change her internal plumbing back to egg laying mode. Each hen can vary on how long it takes for their bodies to switch modes, but the less time she is broody the faster this usually is.

It's hard to say how long it will take her to recover and start laying again, but probably not all that long since it was only a week.

If a hen releases two yolks at the same time instead of just the one she should, you can get a double yolked egg. If she releases two in a day but they are separated in time she can lay two eggs in one day. The second egg is likely to be pretty thin shelled since most hens only make enough shell material for one egg each day. Often a hen will skip the next day after she releases two yolks, but not all do. If these are rare occurrences it's not a big deal, all of us are entitled to an oops every now and then.

The egg laying process is fairly complicated. Sometimes it takes a pullet a while to work all the kinks out of her system. As complicated as that process is what's amazing to me is how many get it right to start with. It's very possible when she starts laying again she will lay single yolked eggs.

When a pullet hatches she already has all the ova to form yolks that she will ever have. If she is laying double yolked eggs every day she's using up those ova and could eventually run out. In the commercial egg laying industry those hens that have run out of ova are called slick hens. If she is laying every other day this is unlikely.

Will laying those large double yolked eggs hurt a hen? Maybe, maybe not. Hens lay double yolked eggs all the time without problems, but the more larger eggs they lay the more likely there is to be a problem. Their bodies are designed to lay a certain sized egg. The larger the egg the more likely for her to become egg-bound or to prolapse. How much more likely? That will depend on the hen but usually not much. I'd consider the risk fairly small but there is a bit of a risk.

A lot of the time that is genetic, some hens have a tendency to release extra yolks. One thing that can encourage a hen to release extra yolks is a high protein diet. I don't know how you are feeding your flock but if you are feeding a high protein diet you might cut back a bit and see if that has an effect.

 

[Oolala]

Thank you so much for this very informative advice.
My hen eats exactly the same as the other two and they have never given a double yolk egg. They have their mixed seed dish in Their coup for early morning feeding as we are a bit lazy getting up, they then have a small dish of pellets, about a mug full for the rest of the day when they then free range in the garden, we have 2,500 sq meters of land so plenty of space which keeps them occupied for the day. In the evening they get a cereal bowl size of a mixture of wheat, tinned sweetcorn, and raisins between them, oh and a pot of yogurt. We dont tend to have much left over food from meals so they get very little table scraps. Because they are so active all day, especially when I am weeding in the garden as they follow me everywhere in the hope of lots of creepy crawlies to eat I dont worry they are over eating.
Today, she laid her first egg, quite small so I dont expect it to be a double yolker, i would be more than happy for this to be the norm and an extra big egg now and again as a treat. Hopefully she will have a long and happy laying life

 

[Ridgerunner]

You are not feeding them high levels of protein from that description.