Broody silkie

[smoon]

My silkie has gone broody and I have no rooster so I can't allow her to stay this way. She acted distraught when I took her fake wooden egg away from her today.

This is my first time dealing with this. Any advice on how to bring her back to her normal self? When I bring her outside with the others she plops down on the ground as if she is on her nest! Then it's back to the nest as fast as her little legs will carry her!

 

[QueenMisha]

Lol... Silkies are brooding machines. Be prepared to deal with this constantly.

The best way to break a broody is using a wire cage. Make sure the floor is wire and place it several feet off the ground. Offer no bedding whatsoever and place the cage somewhere out in the open, preferably in an area with plenty of activity and noise. It usually takes a few days to a week to break one with this method.

 

[smoon]

Thank you, i will give that a try.

 

[aart]

Granted this is not a silkie....but.....
My experience went like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop and I would feed her some crumble a couple times a day.

I let her out a couple times a day(you don't have to) and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two.
Water nipple bottle added after pic was taken.

 

[smoon]

Thank you for the pic. This is extremely helpful!

 

[AustralorpsAU]

Lots of great tips given. There are plenty of threads that talk about breaking a broody. A great feature of this site is the search engine at the top of the page. If you search for 'breaking a broody' you will come across lots of great old threads!