Eggstreme broodiness

[Daisygirl]

My 6 month old Brown shaver (production breed) has been broody for the past three weeks, on and off- ---as in she lays her egg, sits on it, then I toss her off the nest and she stays off for the rest of the day. And this happened everyday, until three days ago when she started going back to the nest and sitting on it overnight...with no eggs and eating only once a day. She stopped laying yesturday. So, to try and get her off the nest I collected all the eggs we had from the fridge, along with a few other odds and ends, and put them on her nest while she was out. Well, she came back, and this is the result...just bear in mind I have no roosters

The "eggs"

Annie sitting on her "brood"

It all adds up to 16 eggs, a plastic egg, a golf ball, a pom pom and my cat's toy mouse.

 

[steelersfan43]

that is too cute!

 

[Daisygirl]

does anyone know how to break a broody hen?????

 

[Kittymomma]

There are a bunch of threads on it with different ideas if you want to do a search. The most reliable seems to be putting the broody in a wire bottom suspended cage (or whatever you can do that is close) with food and water, but NOTHING she can make a nest out of. The wire bottom seems to be helpfull in really stubborn cases because it keeps their bottom side from warming up like it would on a nest and snaps them out of their hormonal broody trance faster. Even though she looks pretty determined (loved the photo!) she is a production breed so just confining her to a pen/crate with nothing to make a nest out of might be enough to snap her out of it. Good luck with her and know that I am totaly jealous! I keep hoping that one of mine will go broody, but no luck so far.

--Almost forgot--It usually takes from a few days to a week to break them. Some of the really broody breeds like silkies might take longer or not stop at all, but I don't think you'll have too much trouble with your girl.

 

[Daisygirl]

Thanks!
I locked them up for the night (which I normally never do - - - we live in a really SAFE place for chickens i.e. central city, the cats are terrified of them and they put themselves to bed)
and she went and sat on the perch, so when I let them out in the morning we shall see

The one thing that really agitates me in this is that I have a broody hen, and I want to hatch chicks from eggs HOWEVER the area only allows 6 chooks only with NO roosters, so I'm a bit stuck there...........I'll just have to dream of greener and larger paddocks, more chickens and more lenient regional councils......