Chickens suddenly not getting along?

[Farmgirl217]

Hi y'all! The title is pretty self explanatory but I am quiet recently having a problem with my chickens not getting along.

I have had 4 EE's for over a year a half and all has been good so far. Recently one of the smaller girls has been spending all of her time in the nesting boxes and is very hard to coax out. When she does eventually come out it seems she doesn't get along with one of the other girls. I don't know if this is just a problem with her being broody or if it is something else.

Any suggestions would be great! Thanks again!!

 

[Roo5]

It’s her being broody,her new behavior and hormones irritate the flock,has happened a lot here.

 

[chickens really]

Is she Broody? Definitely explaining the situation is better.

 

[Farmgirl217]

It’s her being broody,her new behavior and hormones irritate the flock,has happened a lot here.

Thank you - that's what I am thinking too. Besides just constantly removing the eggs and putting her back in with the flock is there anything else I can do?

 

[aart]

These are my go to signs:
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.

Besides just constantly removing the eggs and putting her back in with the flock is there anything else I can do?

Yep!

If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, 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 on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop or run with feed and water.

I used to let them out a couple times a day, but now just once a day in the evening(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. Or take her out of crate daily very near roosting time(30-60 mins) if she goes to roost great, if she goes to nest put her back in crate.

Chunk of 2x4 for a 'roost' was added to crate floor after pic was taken.