How to Break a Broody Hen

[smorris]

My question regarding having a broody hen is the health issue. Do you know if it is bad for their health if they do it for a prolonged period of time? I have a young hen that just started laying about 2-3 weeks ago and she has become broody. Sits in the nesting box pretty much 24/7 only leaving once a day to poop, eat and drink water. I do not have a rooster so there is no chance of her hatching any eggs, and in fact most of the time she isn't even sitting on any actual eggs. My question is that if a hen does this indefinitely is it bad for her health? I have read about the broody buster method, where you put them in a small separate cage to break them but was wondering on the effectiveness of this in the long term. Do they just go back to the nesting box after a short period of time? Anyway, my main question is regarding the health issues, if they continue to remain broody long term. Thank you so much for your input.

 

[nina1marc2]

My question regarding having a broody hen is the health issue.  Do you know if it is bad for their health if they do it for a prolonged period of time?  I have a young hen that just started laying about 2-3 weeks ago and she has become broody.  Sits in the nesting box pretty much 24/7 only leaving once a day to poop, eat and drink water.  I do not have a rooster so there is no chance of her hatching any eggs, and in fact most of the time she isn't even sitting on any actual eggs.  My question is that if a hen does this indefinitely is it bad for her health?  I have read about the broody buster method, where you put them in a small separate cage to break them but was wondering on the effectiveness of this in the long term.  Do they just go back to the nesting box after a short period of time?  Anyway, my main question is regarding the health issues, if they continue to remain broody long term.  Thank you so much for your input.

Their health can be affected in the long run unless you plan on getting fertilized eggs to hatch her out. I have a silkie that does this every few months and I have learned how to break her very easily. I don't have a rooster so her eggs won't hatch either. She will lay in a empty nesting box too. I remove her and put her in a medium size dog crate/kennel that has holes in the bottom to allow her bottom to breathe. This allows her hormones to go back to a normal range but it does take a few days. I leave her in it during the day but since it's so cold at night I put her back on her perch with the other hens at night to allow them to cuddle. She does not get down because she can't see. She stays in there until the morning then I put her back in the broody pen. She stays with the other hens in that crate so they can see her and she can see them. I put food and water in the crate so she can eat. If my other hens laid their eggs early I will lock up the nesting box and allow her to free range with the others. It usually takes two to three days to break her now because I catch her early behaving this way. She doesn't lay eggs for about a week and a half after she is broke from being broody.

I find breaking her of this bad habit is Better then letting her brood.

Good luck.

 

[smorris]

Thank you so much for your reply. I really appreciate it and I am going to give the pen a try. I live in Southern California so the cold shouldn't be an issue, but I am fine with letting her out at night if needed. Thanks again for your prompt reply and great information. I appreciate it!

 

[nina1marc2]

Thank you so much for your reply.  I really appreciate it and I am going to give the pen a try.  I live in Southern California so the cold shouldn't be an issue, but I am fine with letting her out at night if needed.  Thanks again for your prompt reply and great information.  I appreciate it!  

Oh if your in a warm place then I would just leave her in the broody pen until she doesn't try to run back into the nesting box. I live in Virginia and its gets below freezing here at night right now so I put her back in the box. It's actually better to leave her in the pen until she changes her hormones. I have a huge coop and run for them to move around so I can lock the coop up and make her stay outside the run areas with the food and water to monitor her behavior to see if she try's to go back into the coop. I usually try that after the first two days. I Also leave her in the run area in the pen for the first two days. I just clean the pen out and keep suppling food and water as needed. She hates it but seeing the other girls running around free tends to stop the behavior faster.

Good luck. It's never easy. I do know silkies are great mother hens and tend to brood more than other hens. My easter eggers never go broody.

 

[smorris]

Yes, we have beautiful weather here luckily. Even though it has been rainy the past couple of days it is still in the 60's during the day and rarely do we get below the high 40's or low 50's at night. I don't have any silkies, but I am very intrigued with them. I have looked at them a bit online and am interested in them. I only have six chickens right now and the broody girl is an Ameraucana. Where did you get your silkies and would you recommend them? Do you raise them mainly as pets or are they good layers?

 

[critterkeeper25]

Well, I sure am glad that I decided to check out what broody behavior looks like! I have a Buff Orpington that has been acting "weird" off and on for the past week. When I go to gather the eggs in late morning, she is the only hen that is still sitting in the nest boxes. When I try to reach under her to check for eggs she puffs up her neck feathers and growls at me and pecks at my hands. I usually just go along with the theatrics for a little bit until I get frustrated and just jack up her behind with one hand and reach under with the other to get the eggs out. Usually, after I have done this, she stands up and looks around underneath herself and when she doesn't see any eggs, she leaves the box and goes into the pen with the rest of the hens. Today was a different story. I went out this afternoon to give the hens a snack of greens (we free range, but today with all of the snow and ice we are having in S. NJ, they are in the pen) I double checked the nest boxes to be sure that there weren't any late eggs and there she was sitting in the box. I went through the whole retrieval routine, there were no eggs under her. I started to panic, thinking that maybe she was having issues with a bound egg so I gently felt around her cloaca and abdomen (which made her angrier) but felt nothing unusual. I finally shoved her out of the nest and into the coop. By the time I shut the overhead door to the nest boxes and went and opened the coop door to see how she was acting, she was back on the nest again. I am assuming now that she is exhibiting broody behavior, since she has acted this way before. But she has always been sitting on at least one egg. I also felt her crop, just to make sure that that was okay. It felt hard and large. She was all pressed flat to the nest and arching her neck at times to display her displeasure at my interrupting her on her nest. Would flexing her neck like that make her crop feel hard? If she had an impacted crop, would she be showing this sort of behavior? My husband tended the hens this morning so I am not sure if she was on the nest all day, or if she had been acting strangely at all.

Here's hoping for broody behavior, and not illness! I can handle the former and dread the latter! Thanks for your input.

 

[nina1marc2]

Yes, we have beautiful weather here luckily.  Even though it has been rainy the past couple of days it is still in the 60's during the day and rarely do we get below the high 40's or low 50's at night.  I don't have any silkies, but I am very intrigued with them.  I have looked at them a bit online and am interested in them.  I only have six chickens right now and the broody girl is an Ameraucana.  Where did you get your silkies and would you recommend them?  Do you raise them mainly as pets or are they good layers?

I only hatch out my eggs from an incubator from a friends farm. The silkie was the only one out of 11 that hatched. I kept her and two others that were EE mixes. She is the sweetest of them all. She is my best egg layer when she isn't broody. She lays 6-7 days then a day off and starts all over again. She even laid all winter. I do like the blue/green eggs she lays too. She is a great mother hen if you want to hatch eggs since she can go broody often. I can break her fast now though so I don't let her stay broody long. I do recommend them.

 

[nina1marc2]

...

Well, I sure am glad that I decided to check out what broody behavior looks like!  I have a Buff Orpington that has been acting "weird" off and on for the past week.  When I go to gather the eggs in late morning, she is the only hen that is still sitting in the nest boxes.  When I try to reach under her to check for eggs she puffs up her neck feathers and growls at me and pecks at my hands.  I usually just go along with the theatrics for a little bit until I get frustrated and just jack up her behind with one hand and reach under with the other to get the eggs out.  Usually, after I have done this, she stands up and looks around underneath herself and when she doesn't see any eggs, she leaves the box and goes into the pen with the rest of the hens.  Today was a different story.  I went out this afternoon to give the hens a snack of greens (we free range, but today with all of the snow and ice we are having in S. NJ, they are in the pen) I double checked the nest boxes to be sure that there weren't any late eggs and there she was sitting in the box.  I went through the whole retrieval routine, there were no eggs under her.  I started to panic, thinking that maybe she was having issues with a bound egg so I gently felt around her cloaca and abdomen (which made her angrier) but felt nothing unusual. I finally shoved her out of the nest and into the coop. By the time I shut the overhead door to the nest boxes and went and opened the coop door to see how she was acting, she was back on the nest again.  I am assuming now that she is exhibiting broody behavior, since she has acted this way before.  But she has always been sitting on at least one egg.  I also felt her crop, just to make sure that that was okay.  It felt hard and large. She was all pressed flat to the nest and arching her neck at times to display her displeasure at my interrupting her on her nest.  Would flexing her neck like that make her crop feel hard? If she had an impacted crop, would she be showing this sort of behavior?  My husband tended the hens this morning so I am not sure if she was on the nest all day, or if she had been acting strangely at all.

Here's hoping for broody behavior, and not illness!  I can handle the former and dread the latter!  Thanks for your  input.
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That's exactly what my Silkie does. I was worried at first but once I put her in the broody pen for a few days and watched her behavior she showed more signs of being broody.

 

[smorris]

She sounds great. I will have to think about getting a couple possibly. I didn't realize that the Silkies were good egg layers as well. For some reason I thought I had read that they were inconsistent. So, she lays blue/green eggs? What color of a Silkie is she?

 

[nina1marc2]

She sounds great.  I will have to think about getting a couple possibly.  I didn't realize that the Silkies were good egg layers as well.  For some reason I thought I had read that they were inconsistent.  So, she lays blue/green eggs?  What color of a Silkie is she?

She is black with some brown streaks. She is a silkie mix. Her behavior is all silkie though.