My mom and I are veryyyy attached to our chickens. We view them as pets, so we give them the cushiest life we can. My mom and I both feel uncomfortable with putting any sort of animal into a cage with a wire bottom for the sole purpose of, well, making them uncomfortable; even if it's only for a couple days, we'd still feel so guilty. I've kept her away from the nest for a couple hours, done the ice packs, soaked her in water today, tried to give her treats every time she was down (not by her own means)... it feels like I only have two options left. I don't want to get animals with the purpose of reselling them, nor do I want to make my pet uncomfortable purposefully, but I have to make a choice. The unfortunate part is my mom doesn't really understand why being broody is a bad thing, nor that she won't just "quit it" if I let her go at it for a while. Aaaaagghhh. I'll try looking on craigslist and maybe start emailing some nearby people...
Our silkie is also a pet. We have a lot of broody prone birds, like black copper marans, besides Susan the silkie. One other method I’ve used is this: we have a separate fenced section of the run with food, water, shelter, but no nesting material. Broody girl goes into the run section in the morning; she can see friends but can’t get to nest box. At night, when it’s pretty dark, broody girl goes on roost with flockmates, then back to run section in the AM. Our mild broodies will break in a few days. This only works if: 1) they don’t plop down and make their own “nest” in the run. 2) they stay on the roost at night and don’t jump off in the dark to find a nest.
Susan, being a silkie, is harder to break; she will make her own nest and won’t stay on the roost. Last spring, her best friend Marilyn the showgirl (see pic) died, and Susan really went into a funk. We let her stay in a nest too long (almost a week) because she was so sad about her friend and was being picked on by the flock. Then we couldn’t break her. She would eat only a tiny bit and hardly drink. We eventually decided to let her sit on the nest, and got eggs for her to hatch. She was so very dedicated. We had to take her off the nest and outside of the run to get her to eat. She wouldn’t eat real food, only fruit and some scratch, and only a tiny bit of these. She barely drank. This gave her diarrhea, and she lost so much weight, vigor, and spirit. She was so thin and just seemed to be a barely living incubating machine. I was very worried about her. Her hatch failed. She had no babies, no muscle left on her breast, no energy, and she still would barely eat or leave the nest. We decided at this point that she needed the chicks to break her, or she’d probably die soon. It took a few more days, but I found her young chicks, she accepted them, and immediately ate a ton.
Susan might be a great incubating machine, but she’s a horrible broody pet. Being broody was absolutely awful for her health, and I never want to put her through that again if I can help it. We have other broody hens that have incubated eggs, and it’s somewhat hard on all of them, but Susan was by far the worst at taking care of herself. I’ll never put her through that experience and risk her health like that again if I can help it. Her broody breaker cage is in the run so she can see her friends. She has food and water, safety and shelter. She’s only miserable because she wants to be on a nest, but I know from experience that she is much better off with a few days of discomfort then she is turning into a mindless, slowly wasting away incubator.
