Broody hens

[aart]

The proof is in the pudding....The original poster has not asked for advise in 3 day and 13 hours.....Looks to me like it all worked out as it should....

....


Cheers!

A convenient assumption for you to make.

Could also mean the exact opposite.
We can only speculate, as they haven't come back to comment.

My assumption would be be that someone with only these 2 posts after 2 years membership,
is that they are not great communicators.....
....or really didn't want help with the situation...
....or it's gone belly up and they don't want to post about it.

 

[msteele1953]

Can someone tell me what a "Broody" hen is and is it a behavior that will stop a hen from laying? Will it stop?

 

[chickens really]

Can someone tell me what a "Broody" hen is and is it a behavior that will stop a hen from laying? Will it stop?

Broody Hens want to set eggs.....Yes. they stop laying......They get growling, puffed up and do not leave the nest...They poop huge every couple of days and smell terrible.....They want to hatch Chicks.....


Cheers!

 

[centrarchid]

Can someone tell me what a "Broody" hen is and is it a behavior that will stop a hen from laying? Will it stop?

A broody hen is one that transitioned from laying eggs to incubation said eggs. In most instances, prior to depositing first egg in a nest, she remembers or imprints on the actual nest site. This imprinting ensures she put all eggs in same nest and goes to correct location when comes to actually incubate her own eggs. As she lays eggs she has some sort of internal mechanism that tracks resources needed to continue laying eventually kicks in to stop egg production and cause hen to want to sit on nest with exposed skin of breast touching eggs. She will spend all but an hour or so on nest each day. When that hour is realized (usually between 0900 and 1600) the hen slinks away from nest quietly at least a few feet (mine about 50 feet) before bolting and making some considerable racket that appears important in informing harem master (usually father of chicks in eggs) that she is about. She produces a large fecal mass that contains feces that had gone straight through the digestive tract and that which was processed by the cecum. The latter is the really stinky part and normally the to types are excreted separately. The hen then gets water and feeds voraciously to fill her crop. During the feeding she is testy around other chickens and often does little to join them. If weather is warm she may also engage in dust bathing. Then she quitely approaches her nest site and slips on in a manner I think makes so nest predators are less likely to take note of. During the first week or two of incubation the hen will not act appropriately to chicks placed under her as she has not yet reached window where she can imprint on them. After that she will imprint on chicks presented to her. During the incubation process the hen losses weight, especially if she must get most of her nutrition by foraging. Typically, the hen still has further weight loose once chicks hatch. If she looses weight too fast, then she is apt to abandon the brooding effort causing loss of embryos or even chicks. Some hens will stick with effort to point of endangering own life but that is far from the rule. When you provide a lot of easy to access feed, the resource monitoring and weight loss parts break down and broodiness can go for extended periods of time.

Breaking Broodiness
If you make so broody hen cannot get to nest site, that can start process of stopping broodiness in just a couple of days. Hen disturbed by predator can break broodiness almost immediately although she will still cluck and exhibit other behaviors typical of broodiness. Broodiness also breaks after chicks hatch and that appears to be a function of hen returning to laying weight. Return to laying weight following incubation cycle conflicts with brooding and feeding chicks. Typically my hens return to laying weight about 5 weeks after hatch of previous brood. Heavy feeding and / or warm weather may speed return to laying weight with some back in lay withing 3 weeks. Break of broodiness with respect to chick rearing is not black and white as hen can care for young even though outward signs of broodiness such as clucking cease. Full break is when hen attacks even her own chicks and that may be essential to prevent older brood from harming younger siblings.

 

[msteele1953]

Can broodyness happen even though there is no interaction with a rooster?

 

[aart]

Can broodyness happen even though there is no interaction with a rooster?

Yep, it's hormonal.