Chicken Jail - Day 1 of 3

[tflowers]

Not Broody..Hiding for a reason..

Im pretty sure she is broody - she is not hiding.

 

[aart]

Best to leave her in overnight if at all possible....unless you can get out there at the break of dawn to cage her again.

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.

 

[tflowers]

Beautiful! I left the black tray that came with the dog kennel at the bottom. Going out today to upgrade her plastic tray to chicken wire.
And she was left in the cage over night.
Supplying water and feed. And cleaning up her cage 2 times a day.

Planning to take her out monday around noon. That will be 72 hours.

Did your hen ever go broody again after you took her out if the cage for good?

 

[FridayYet]

Great picture Aart. I have the same set up but in the run, since my coop is too hot during the afternoons. So I move her to the roost late evenings and get up early to put her back in the cage.

 

[aart]

Beautiful! I left the black tray that came with the dog kennel at the bottom. Going out today to upgrade her plastic tray to chicken wire.
And she was left in the cage over night.
Supplying water and feed. And cleaning up her cage 2 times a day.

Planning to take her out monday around noon. That will be 72 hours.

Did your hen ever go broody again after you took her out if the cage for good?

I'd go with something stiffer than chicken wire....I used 14ga 1x2 cage wire, bottom of crate was like 4x4 or 6x6.
If you get it in there tight and neat you can still get the tray in if you need it.
I have 3 like this and they are really handy, often use the trays as 'roofs'.

Either that bird (or her 'twin' sister) went broody again the next summer.
The third broody I had, I gave her eggs to hatch in the middle of winter(won't do that again).

 

[tflowers]

Well folks, cluck cluck is out of chicken jail and she is free ranging with the others. So far so good!

Thank you all for the help