Broody, will she kill herself?

[Abbie79]

I have a black sex link hen that's been broody for nearly two months. She sits whether there are eggs or not. Starting around 7am I pull her out of her nest to make her eat and drink with the rest of the flock, and repeat this process two to five times throughout the day. She'll drink, eat a bit, preen a little, sometimes take a bath, and then back to the box within 30 min. Every night I have to take her out of her nest and place her with the others to roost. I don't want to distress her any more than I already am with methods like ice baths, putting cold packs in the nest, and especially refuse to cage her. I did separate her via temporary fence from the nests for a few days, but she almost went nuts and didn't eat. I keep hoping she'll cycle through it, but could she kill herself in the process?

 

[MageofMist]

Broodieness is tied to heat, if you manage to cool her down especially on the broody patch, she should lose interest. When my Silkie was still broody after her eggs hatched when she wasn't interested in the chicks, I kept locking her outside as it was cool out, letting her in at night, and she stopped being broody within 2 days and started laying again after 2 weeks. She brooded again 3 months later and accepted her chicks and has them to distract her.

Brooding is bad for a hen's health if allowed past the ordinary hatching time, as the hen doesn't eat or drink as much as they should and constantly hold in their poops, and I did lose a quail who went broody and didn't leave the broody stage when she should have.

Try cooling her off by putting a coldpack in her nest at the least, it hopefully will work and you won't need to cage or ice-bath your hen.

 

[aart]

and especially refuse to cage her. .... I keep hoping she'll cycle through it, but could she kill herself in the process?

Why did/do you refuse to cage her? A few days of discomfort and stress is better than letting her languish in a state that will deteriorate her health and could eventually kill her.

They hate the cage at first but if you stick to your guns they get used to it after a day or so...then a few more days and they are done. Tho now that you've let her go so long, twice the length of time it would have taken to hatch some eggs, it could take a couple weeks in a cage to break her. 3 days broody takes about 3 days in cage to break, the longer they are broody the longer in the cage.


If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, best to break her broodiness promptly.
My first 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.

 

[lazy gardener]

I agree with Aart. IMO, it is more cruel to allow her to languish in a broody state than it is to take decisive action and manage her broody state. If a broody is not going to be allowed to hatch eggs, then she should be broken from her broodiness immediately.

 

[azygous]

Yes, prolonged broodiness can kill your hen. Do you wish to run that risk? After this long, she's very low on reserves. Her immune system is probably sub-par, and she could be an easy mark for a bacterial infection.

The broody cage is not a torture chamber. I have a broody right now. She's on her third day, so by tomorrow morning, she should be back to normal and out of the cage.

I place the cage in the center of activity in the run so the broody isn't lonely. In fact, all the activity helps to break the broody spell. My broodies get to leave the cage for a few minutes several times a day to dirt bathe and stretch their legs. But they do sleep all night in the cage.

Food and water are in the cage so they have plenty to eat and drink. It's not any harder on a hen than being broody for a couple of months straight.