Broody Silkie Hen, No Rooster, No Fertilized Eggs. Breaking a Broody girl!

[Suzy P]

Now isn't she a pretty girl! Goldie Grace is her name. And our girl here has gone broody. We can not and do not want roosters, so no fertilized eggs, no baby chicks.
After 3 days of refusing to leave the nesting box and puffing up and pecking at us, we used a dog crate to break the broody. We following others instructions on how to make it into a broody breaker and put it in our house garage. But my gosh, the flies are unbearable! So this morning after day 2 I put her back in with the flock. And in she ran to the nesting box refusing to move! Guess 2 days are not enough!
We do not want to put her back in the garage, but feel like in the out garage where it's opened is not safe for her.

My thoughts: We have a coop door to close off the coop from the run. I'm thinking that if I place her inside the coop in a smaller dog carrier only long enough for my others to lay their eggs. Then after close off the door to the coop from the run and let her out in the coop. She will not have access to the nesting boxes and will be in with the rest of the flock. I will close off all doors when they free range. We don't let ours free range without us being down there with them. We are very protective of our flock. With that being said on a ::worth a try method and prayers:: I am in hopes that we break our sweet lil silkie girl.

??What works for you when your are breaking your broody girl??

 

[Lady Clucks-a-Lot]

I just let them be. They'll break it up eventually. Last year, two of my hens GreyWhite and Runner (Dark Brahma & Gold Laced Wyandotte) went really broody last year. They probably sat in the nest for 2 months, but eventually they stopped. Also another solution is to buy fertilized eggs - any type of eggs that your hen will be able to fit it under. She'll stop if she gets chicks out of the eggs, or just wait for her to stop herself.

 

[yakitori]

oh it’s a silkie..... good luck breaking her I let mine hatch, haha

 

[aart]

Is that second pic the breaker crate?
You want nothing on the bottom, just wire.
...ans rise it up off the floor/ground.
Keep the crate in the coop and/or run.

 

[Suzy P]

I just let them be. They'll break it up eventually. Last year, two of my hens GreyWhite and Runner (Dark Brahma & Gold Laced Wyandotte) went really broody last year. They probably sat in the nest for 2 months, but eventually they stopped. Also another solution is to buy fertilized eggs - any type of eggs that your hen will be able to fit it under. She'll stop if she gets chicks out of the eggs, or just wait for her to stop herself.

We were given chicks and a broody mother hen a week ago. My 4 original hens were chasing and pecking and pulling feathers of my 2 newest hen and all 5 chicks. So my neighbor said she wanted the chicks. As soon as the chicks were going our 4 original hens became calm and stopped the aggression. My husband said no more chicks while we have our flock that we have.
This was the chicks we had. Lil silkie mix.
Oh on the writing on the pic. We were guessing at sex on chicks. We will check with our neighbor and see if there were 3 roosters and two hens. Just guessing for fun.

 

[Birdie mom]

both your ideas, @Lady Clucks-a-Lot, and @Suzy P could both work, it just depends on how much effort you want to put into breaking her. I'm no expert at this so hopefully someone else can chime in and give some advice

 

[David61]

Chicken jail, the cooler, bird on the wire.
Keep your small cage in plain sight of other birds off the ground. The air has to cool her butt. The body heat send the chicken into broody mode. lower the body heat lowers the hormones. for everday on the nest, a day in the cooler.

 

[Lady Clucks-a-Lot]

It's normal that new members to a flock gets chased by the older hens, what I do is that I put them in two different coop but RIGHT next to each other and get comfort with each other and the older hens will start excepting the young. We just added 3 new chicks (Peanut (RIR), Butter (Sapphire Olive Egger), and Jelly (Speckle Sussex)) Yellowie, who is lowest on the Pecking ORDER seems to be really entertained when she gets to bite the chicks, but also a good thing that GreyWhite my lead hen, the Queen of the flock seems to be very friendly and gentle with the chicks. So far she's only pecked them once.

 

[Lady Clucks-a-Lot]

To @yakitori I love your profile, it looks adorable!

 

[MiaSophia2020]

oh it’s a silkie..... good luck breaking her I let mine hatch, haha

I’ve considered letting mine hatch next time. I would like to have 2 more hens eventually but I’m hesitant to hatch because I know how hard it was to get rid of the original rooster chicks I had, (6 chicks, 4 ended up being roosters). I kept 1 rooster and my 2 hens and got 2 more grown hens several months later.