Darn it, broody so soon?

[SycolinWoodsChickens]

Our pullets just started laying eggs over the last few weeks. Not everyone is even laying yet. But I have a speckled sussex that is just determined to go broody. She might not even be laying yet?!?!?

We have 5 nestboxes set up and the ducks seem to always use one of them and the chickens use 3 of the others. However, for the last few days one of our SS chooks has been singing the egg song - constantly. And someone has been gathering eggs and putting them into one nest (duck eggs and chicken eggs). Today when I went out to collect she was sitting on the eggs (two duck and two chicken) and pecked at me everytime I tried to move her to collect them. I finally went and got a pair of leather gloves and got the eggs out from under her but she is still sitting.

Is she just playing or do you think she is determined to go broody? We want to get a SS roo and increase our flock size but I wasn't planning on doing that until Spring.

BTW, I don't think she is broody yet because she will go out and freerange at 5pm when we let the chooks out.

 

[Judy]

If she doesn't sleep in the nest, don't worry about it, and encourage her to continue the free ranging. Yes it is possible she is "sort of broody" -- some hormones but not enough, sort of practicing for broodiness. Since SS are a fairly broody breed, she may turn out to be a great broody for you!

 

[Happy Chooks]

She's probably just practicing for the big day of her first egg. If she were broody, she'd stay on the nest through the night. I have a few hens that screech at me, they've never gone broody, they just don't like being bothered while on the nest.