How to Break a Broody Hen

[Sunny Side Up]

Well then, you may want to consider the ideas in this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/675136/when-not-to-break-a-broody-hen

 

[Chickies4ever]

My hen is broody right now. Her name is Cheep and she is an Australorp. This is my first hen to be broody though.
I know how to break them cause my friend Brooke ( chickencrazy429) has had MANY broody hens so I have seen her work with them.

 

[HennyPennyHenHouse]

I have a partridge bantam cochin who finally started laying in February, at almost a year old. She laid for a month before becoming broody and sitting on the eggs. I have no roosters so no eggs are fertile. We have quarantined her a number of times, 3 nights in the dog pen to break the broodiness. Within a few days she is always back on the nest. It seems like the urge to sit on eggs is just too strong to break. Since I am raising the chickens for the eggs, she is not contributing while broody and has not laid an egg in 4 months. Any ideas? I don't have the option of hatching eggs with my setup.
She has always been at the bottom of the pecking order and I believe she now finds it safer to sit on the eggs than possibly getting picked on by the others (total of 5). She is currently missing feathers on the back of her neck. She has been broody and broken four times since March with no sign of stopping. And now that the weather has reached the 90s, I'm more fearful of her overheating and not drinking.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[bobbieschicks]

I see this is not an isolated incident of wanting to break a broody lol

I let her go broody last time and she sat for 45 days without any chicks from two separate batches. She either broke them or they went rotten due to egg getting on the shells. I finally gave her six RIR chicks to raise. She did a great job and went back to laying around week 5. Now the chicks are 10 weeks old and she wants to sit again! It's been almost 17 days of constantly kicking her off the empty nest and putting her in ice cold water which didn't break her but almost froze me!

This is my last hope. I made a broody breaker and put it inside my hopefully secure run. Either she's going to get killed in there or she will stop being broody, either way she's not going back in the coop until she's done with the cluck cluck stuff!

 

[bobbieschicks]

Well Bunny was alive this morning so that's good. However she's still cluck clucking so she stays put for today.

 

[hopp2it]

Wow, I last posted here on 5/24 about breaking our hen from being broody and here it is 7/8 and she's broody again. She started a few days ago seeming odd but is full on broody now. Back in the cage she goes.

 

[Elena2424]

How old are chickens until they are broody

 

[bobbieschicks]

How old are chickens until they are broody

I've had really young silky pullets co sit on a nest with an older pullet or hen. I think Vanilla Ice was 14 weeks old? I'd have to look at my notes to be certain. Technically they aren't broody because they've never laid an egg yet, but they help the broody raise her chicks. I've had a silky girl who went broody within a week of laying her first egg.

 

[bobbieschicks]

After a couple of nights in the cage Bunny was back to her old self so I let her out. A couple of times I caught her getting into the coop and once she got in the nest box so I tossed her out again. She was out free ranging with everyone else. Then tonight I found her back in the nest box standing up. So I grabbed her up and put her on the roost. She was staying put on the roost when I left her.

Tonight's guest in the cage is Smokey who is an old time broody. She had been acting potentially broody and then spent a majority of her time in the nest today. Caught her in the boxes tonight and tossed her up on the roost only to have her creep back into the boxes. So into the cage she went.

I should know tomorrow how many reservations will be needed at the Broody Drop In.

 

[DOnSoCalOC]

Well then, you may want to consider the ideas in this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/675136/when-not-to-break-a-broody-hen

Sunny Side Up...thank you very much for sharing the link. We are on to week 6 now. We finally let her out and do her thing last week, though we were letting her out each day prior to this a few times per day to run around, dust, and eat...then when she went to settin we put her back in the cage. So it's been a week, still broody, but she comes out on her own and does her thing and we toss her out once or twice a day. I put her in the cage today because she is really causing a lot of angst with the others. They freak out when they need to lay because she is in there. It's gotta stop sooner or later...don'cha think???

She eats and looks healthy, breathing sounds good, she hasn't gotten real thin or sickly looking at all. We do keep DE in the nesting boxes and in the coop straw and she dusts daily. Just wish it would stop...