Get Out of That Nestbox!

[Sally PB]

I wish you lived close enough, @3KillerBs. I'd lend you a dog crate... Good luck.

 

[3KillerBs]

I wish you lived close enough, @3KillerBs. I'd lend you a dog crate... Good luck.

I'll get it figured out somehow.

 

[janiedoe]

I'm voting for fertile eggs...wait, is there a vote? Good luck with your hen, and finding eggs or breaking her, whichever you decide.

 

[aart]

I am reluctant to spend the money right now when we will shortly be building a broody jail into the new coop in just a few weeks.

I get it.
I borrowed my first one and it was so handy I bought one new(pricey-$60).
Then bought 3 more at yard sales or flea markets($15-20).
Use them quite often for isolation for ill or 'bad' birds, staging for slaughtering birds, segregating for sale birds...and of course broody breaking.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...rates-a-good-tool-for-every-chickeneer.72619/

 

[3KillerBs]

Update: Cordon is still firmly incubating her golf balls.

The friend with the rooster has no eggs to spare at the moment but my sister discovered a wire dog crate in the shop that came with her new house, where the owner left loads of furniture and other odds and ends (pretty much packed his clothes and locked the door behind him without taking anything else).

Monday we'll pick up the dog crate (along with some spare furniture), and I'm off Tuesday and Wednesday so I'll create some shelter around it so I can safely leave her crated in the run.

 

[3KillerBs]

Here is the broody-breaker monstrosity concocted from this gigantic dog crate that was left in a shed on the property my sister bought. It has no wire over the pan so I had to turn it upside down, but I cobbled together something that I hope will work and got my protesting broody into it.

I am uncertain of the stability of the chick feeder and will substitute an open pan if she dumps it.

 

[3KillerBs]

I couldn't get my camera focused fast enough to get a shot of the other 4 hens lined up on the ramp into the coop at dusk. Poor Cordon was frantic to be out there alone.

She threw herself against the cage bars, knocked her water over, and make it clear that she was NOT HAPPY to be unable to go in with the other ladies.

Poor thing. She'd tolerated the cage fairly well all day, but not being able to go into the coop upset her badly.

 

[mamajos]

I just went through this scenario with my black australorp. She hated being in there, but next day she accepted it, and it only took 48 hours to break her broodiness.

 

[mamajos]

Mine made a mess of her waterer, I had to bungee cord it to the cage. I also put plain neosporin on her face and comb, because they got a bit bloody from her pushing her face into the wire-trying to get out.

 

[neo71665]

Those types of chick feeders I screw to a 5 gallon bucket lid. Makes them more stable. Also helps catch the feed they bill out.