Collecting eggs from broody, grouchy hens

[juliette2009]

Quote:
I use garden gloves as well! My girls are usually pretty nice about it, but every once in a while, I'll have a hellion in that nest, and out come the gloves!

 

[lvchicken]

My chickens "pretend' to be broody, but give up the hour after!!!

 

[nuchickontheblock]

ScotianChick,

I totally understand where you are coming from. I have 2 hens that alternate going broody and one of them is broody about every 6 weeks. Unfortunately, that particular hen has a low level chronic respiratory virus and I was advised by an avian vet to not introduce additional chickens to our flock of three until she is gone. We also cannot have a roo and are limited by our city to the number of chickens we can keep anyway.

So. . . I have broken my broodies a number of times using a wire bottomed cage (rabbit cage) that has food and water in it. After a few days of having their bottoms cool off without anything comfy to nestle into, they usually come around. One time, though it took about 8 days to break her. The last couple of times, I just kind of gave up on trying to break them in the cage though -- I feel mean when I do it -- and just repeatedly took them off the nest to free range during the day. Luckily mine don't get aggressive when I try to move them or take eggs from under them -- they are mostly in a broody trance and let me pick them up and take them off. It's easy because they are bantams.

There are lots of threads on breaking broodies, if you do a search on the forum on that topic.
Good luck.

 

[kbird]

Oldchickenlady, let me know if your hens go broody and you try the ball thrower method. Would be interesting to see if it works for you!

Melloladies, what a brilliant idea - oven mitts! It's so obvious I don't know why I didn't think of that. Oven mitts are long, well padded and inexpensive to buy a pair just for chickens. Thank you for that suggestion!!

BTW, can anyone answer my original question...is using the handle end of a dog ball thrower to lift up my broody girls just enough to collect eggs going to do them physical harm?


Thanks everyone for the great posts. Really enjoyed reading them!!