Well momma hen is as hateful as ever. I tend not to mess with her the first couple days she starts sitting, but she'd went over 48 hours without coming off the nest. It is supposed to get down to 28 tonight so I wanted her to come off for just a few minutes to eat, drink and poop. I tricked her into eating by placing a can of wet cat food in front of her while she was still on the nest. She realized what it was when she went after me and ate half the can. Then the fun part, removing her. She bit and twisted the whole time, but thankfully only got my coat sleeve. Set the wench down about 10 feet from the nest and she spent that time flogging me trying to get back to the nest. I blocked her for about 5 minutes until she relived herself and then let her go back. Will probably have to do this one or two more times until that first week is over and she'll start coming off like clockwork every 24 hours until hatch time. She's lucky she's only like this when broody and that she's the most experienced and dependable mother I have or I would not tolerate her nonsense. Now lets talk about Butter. The last few week I've had a suspicion that she's thinking about going broody herself. She's been spending more and more time on the nest, and fiercely guards it from other hens and started the velociraptor shriek when you look at her. She's not doing the ticking time bomb noise yet, but at roost time I noticed she wasn't there. Went out and sure enough its dark and she's on the nest. Her nest is not covered so while I was there went ahead and covered it with the orange tote. That made her get off and on the roost but I did see when she stood up she's plucking her chest feathers. I've left the tote on it and will see what she does in the coming days. I told mom what she was doing and if she does decide to set, been dared to break her. Butter gets to do what she wants. Being a first timer if she does even though she's a big hen and could probably handle 8 or more eggs I'll only give her 4 or 5, and only Marans.
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