Broody Hen

[Bitntwice]

I feel horrible!! I a new mother to 7 hens and 1 rooster. They are 7 months old. One of my hens went broody and it has been well over 21 days. I tried to break her and gave up. Today she left her nesting box and went to a different one leaving her eggs. Me...being stupid removed them only to find after opening them two had chicks just about fully developed and egg was not fertilized. I felt so bad! She is now sitting on more eggs!! It is cold here now. They all share the same hen house and free range. Please help. What do I do now? Thank you

 

[Pyxis]

I would try to break her, since she's sat this long. Sitting is hard on them. Take all her eggs and toss her off the nest whenever she goes back to it for a bit. If that doesn't work, you might have to try a 'broody breaker' cage, which is a wire-bottomed cage that you elevate to allow air flow under her. She would stay in there, with food and water of course, for a day, see if that breaks her, if not put her back in for two days, etc, until she gives up being broody.

Another option is to order some chicks for her from a hatchery, and slip them under her at night while removing the eggs she is on. Hopefully, she will think she hatched them and will adopt and raise them.

 

[ValerieJ]

You need to break her of her broodiness. It may be that the egg that was almost fully developed had something wrong with it that she could tell but you couldn't see. It could also be her inexperience, but I suspect she knew something was wrong. After sitting on eggs for 21 days, she has already starved her body and shouldn't be allowed to start the process over now. She needs to eat and get her strength back. Some people put the broody in a dog crate without the tray and lift it off the ground with bricks or something to cool the broody down for a few days. I just take the broody off the nest and put her outside several every day, sometimes several times a day. It depends on how stubborn the broody is. My broody gal gets over it in a few days, but she comes back to the idea in a month or so. If you want her to raise young, it's fine to let her do that in a month or so, just not right now, IMHO.

 

[Bitntwice]

Thank you both so much for your advise. I was worried while she was sitting that she was not eating or drinking water. I would take her out and watch her because my other hens would attack her! After she ate, drank and walked around a bit she back in. I will work with her tomorrow, not making excuses it will be raining the rest of the week...ughhh? This new momma stuff is hard? I feel so bad for my baby.

 

[ValerieJ]

Thank you both so much for your advise. I was worried while she was sitting that she was not eating or drinking water. I would take her out and watch her because my other hens would attack her! After she ate, drank and walked around a bit she back in. I will work with her tomorrow, not making excuses it will be raining the rest of the week...ughhh? This new momma stuff is hard? I feel so bad for my baby.

My broody gets attacked when she is broody too, but not so bad that she gets hurt. I think they give her their eggs and then are mad she didn't stay put on them. When she is not broody, they don't mess with her.

You might need to do the dog crate method if you're worried about injury. That would at least keep her safe. That wouldn't work for me because I don't have a walk in coop or any one coop large enough to put in a crate. Well, I take that back. DH made one last week that would work. Anyway, I haven't done that before because I would have had to bring her into the garage to put her in a crate. So, I'm lucky I guess that it has worked to just take her out and put her on the ground.

Oh, btw, I do that even when it is raining. I even think the wet ground helps in breaking the broodiness because it's cool and that's what we're trying to do, get them cool.

I think I even read that someone here gives her broodies a cool bath to cool them down, but that seems like a lot of work if there is another way to do it.

 

[Jraba1315]

Maybe you could try putting day old chicks under her in the middle of the night? Thats what we did with one of our broodies when none of the eggs hatched. The chicks we put under her were actually like three days old but she didn´t seem to notice. I know you are supposed to do it at night because the hen will be confused. Im so sorry about your situation!

 

[Chang1993]

Out free range with my oegb x ko shamo rooster and she's a shamo x turken.

How will the offspring looks like?