How to Break a Broody Hen

[Nardo]

(Dang it I forgot to quote)

• 36williams said:

I have a hen about a year and a half old who for the past 2 days hasn't laid an egg. She stays in the nest box when I let them out in the afternoon. Yesterday I checked on her and held her for awhile and she went right back to the nest box. I didn't think anything of it but today I let them out and she stayed in the coop. I also noticed her comb was getting pale and her crop wasn't full,normally she is the first one to greet me when I feed them. I blocked off the nest box and left her by herself. I also started antibiotics just in case. My ? Is do you think blocking it off will be enough to break her if she is going broody? I am also hoping that her being by herself and not with the other hens and roo will help.


Is she growling or puffing up as if she is protecting her nest? I'm just not sure from what I read if she's broody or ill. I know you will know very soon if she is indeed broody. LOL

 

[36williamsn]

No she isn't being mean. Today I went to let them all out and she was talking to me and pacing back and forth for me to let her out. She came out took a dirt bath. I decided to unblock the nest box and by the time I came back out with water she was back in the nest box.

 

[Nupe]

What I've found to be a good test is try and hand feed her. If she starts to complain she's still broody even if she eats it.

 

[36williamsn]

I have left them alone for a couple of hours to free range. when I go to put them up for the night I will try and feed her.

 

[36williamsn]

I found her in the nest box and she ate feed out of my hand like she was starving but wasn't really complaining. I took her out and held her for awhile and block the nesting boxes back off. I have a rabbit hutch but don't want to use it because her coop is much more secure especially with her being by herself. Didn't give her anymore anti-biotics tonight but I am going to get some electrolytes for her tomorrow.

 

[Nupe]

I didn't try and feed my broody from the nest box but rather the cage I was breaking her in. While she was still broody, if I leaned in at her with food, she would puff up like a turkey and chatter at me. But she was up on a roost the whole time.

 

[bruceha2000]

I am going to try to put my 3rd (!) broody of the year in "Broody breaker jail". I have a wire cage that has lost its bottom- so she will be against the dirt. Will this be a problem? I have the cage under a tree to keep her out of the direct sun, but have covered the top w/ clear plastic to keep the rain ( daily occurrence, God, what a wet summer!) off and let light in. I gave my other 2 broodies day old chix in a super- stealth- midnight operation and that was a magnificent success both times. I will never raise motherless chicks again after watching how delighted a broody is w/ foster kids and how the little buggers thrive w/ mom hen. Not to mention how easy it is for me to delegate all the work of chicks to the hen! Only draw back is finding day- oldes at the right time, which is why I must break my latest brooder. I am in a suburban setting and have zoning laws of no roosters, and really can't keep adding more chicks as my yard-coop can only hold so many.

Sitting on dirt won't let her cool off underneath like sitting over open air will. Can you make a 1/2" hardware cloth bottom for the cage and get it off the ground?

Agree on the broody raised chicks. The 7 I got and put under my big Black Australorp are doing great. The Faverolles that was still broody (I let her stay broody in the nest box as a backup plan) went into the buster the morning after the "chick injection" when it was clear Zorra was going to take the chicks. I let her out a few days later and now she is the self designated "aunt". So she isn't laying but she isn't broody and hogging a nest box anymore either. Can't hurt to have 2 hens showing the chickens what is food and where it is an on watch for predators .... and in my case, 5 of the other 7 hens who are NOT tolerated near the now 5 week old chicks even though none has ever made an aggressive move toward them. Cute little "family" group whose range expands as Zorra decides.

 

[Pambisan Farm]

It seems I've been answering this question a lot lately, so I thought I'd write it all up to better show up in a search on the subject. Please feel free to add your wisdom to the topic.

A hen "goes broody" when she wants to set continuously on a clutch of eggs for 21 days and have chicks hatch out. Some hens will never go broody, some will go occasionally, some go very frequently, even weeks after leaving their last batch of chicks. It's difficult to "make" a hen go broody, this mood is determined by her own instincts, hormones, voices in her head, instructions beamed down from her Mother Ship.

The best way to tell a hen has gone broody is when she wants to stay in her nest spot at night instead of going up to the roost to sleep. She'll puff her feathers out, flatten her body over the eggs, growl or shriek if disturbed, and often peck or bite any hand that dares come close. She may be setting on real eggs, fake eggs, golf balls, or imaginary eggs, it doesn't matter, they're important to her.

Of course you can allow her to incubate the eggs she's collected, or swap them for other fertile eggs from your own flock or someone else's. How to do that would be the topic of a different thread. This is about what to do if you want to break your Broody's mood and get her back to the work of laying eggs.

I don't think it breaks a hen's heart to break her broody mood. You have to give her points for being determined, but really, her mood can be adjusted without doing mental or emotional damage to her. Some hens are easier to refocus than others.

With some hens, all they need is a few times of being physically removed from the nest and carried out to the yard where their flockmates are ranging. A little bribe of cracked corn will help them see the benefits of not brooding.

Other hens may need a different treatment. The best way I know to break a determined broody hen is to confine her to a wire-bottomed cage, like a rabbit or parrot cage, and place that cage up on sawhorses, blocks, or hang it from the rafters, so that air can flow up underneath. Provide food and water, but NO bedding. Keep her in there for 3-4 days, unless she lays an egg earlier.

Let her out one morning and watch what she does. If she hurries back to the nest spot, she'll need a few more days in the Broody Buster. But if she goes back to hang out with her flockmates, her mood has changed.
Repeat whenever necessary. broody?

not broody!

I did not read through the exchanges but I remember as a young boy, we would bath our broody hen fully if we want her not to sit on her eggs. It appear that the bath would take away the heat of her body losing her desire to brood.

 

[whittychick]

Wow that makes alot of sense with the bath. I will remember that in the future. What I do is...I just continually take them off eggs by picking them up and bring them into outside run. after a few times (usually 2 days worth) they stop and move on.

 

[CuriousChicken]

My hen Princess, whom I would guess is almost a year old, has become broody for the first time. We caught her only a day or two in, she lives with us in the house with liberal amounts of supervised yard time so it was easy to notice that she was acting strangely. Yesterday we revoked her nest box privileges, blocking the entry way with some boxes and put her on top of the cage that her and her rooster Chicken-Butt sleep in at night. She laid one egg yesterday but none today, there is no bedding on the cage, the top of the cage is wire, she has been diaperless for most of today, the room she is in is well lit and she gets weekly baths. We have also have a fan pointed at her to keep her cool. Food and water are readily available, I'm going to dose her with vitamins tomorrow. Her food is really varied and she gets Ultrakibble, unsalted peanuts and meal worms daily.

So just wondering if there's anything else I can do to keep her healthy until shes unbroody. She went broody way earlier than I wanted and I don't have any eggs on hand for her to sit on, the soonest I'll have the eggs is mid August. I know she simply can't go broody that long, guess I'm buying an incubator...

What do I do if she gets stubborn about this? Just keep on the vitamins?