Chicken broody! What to do!

[RobN72]

Hey there! My chicken is broody. I don’t know what to do I am a first time chicken keeper. She will not leave the nesting box. She does not peck but growls when I touch or go near her. I have put some water and food is her nesting area. I took away her egg she laid. Was this the correct thing to do?

 

[sybonbon]

I have a Marans that does this but she's very sweet and doesn't growl. I just pick her up and remove her from the nest every time I see her in there. Broody hens do not lay while they are being broody. Mine sits on the other girls eggs. About 2 weeks after she stops being broody she will lay again. Sometimes she lays 2 to 3 weeks before she goes broody again. Another thing, after your other girls are done laying for the day, blick the nesting boxes for the rest of the day.

 

[aart]

Was this the correct thing to do?

No....Do not feed/water her in the nest.
Take her out of the nest and dip her beak in the waterer if she doesn't do so herself.

First, make sure she is truly broody.
Is she on nest most the day and all night?
When you pull her out of nest and put her on the ground, does she flatten right back out into a fluffy screeching pancake?
Does she walk around making a low cluckcluckcluckcluckcluck(ticking bomb) sound on her way back to the nest?

If so, then she is probably broody and you'll have to decide how to manage it.


If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, IMO it's best to break her broodiness promptly.

My experience goes about like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest (or as soon as I know they are broody), I put her in a wire dog crate (24"L x 18"W x 21"H) with smaller wire(1x2) on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop or run with feed and water.


After 48 hours I let her out of crate very near roosting time(30-60 mins) if she goes to roost great, if she goes to nest put her back in crate for another 48 hours.

Tho not necessary a chunk of 2x4 for a 'roost' was added to crate floor, gives the feet a break from the wire floor and encourages roosting.

 

[3KillerBs]

Are you wanting your broody to hatch eggs? If not, @aart's advice is excellent.

This is the Outdoor Broody Breaker I made because I couldn't fit the cage into my current coop: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/outdoor-broody-breaker.76592/