How to Break a Broody Hen

[KNykky]

My 9 month old Welsummer, Henrietta, is a champ layer. Three weeks ago, we lost one of our girls, and everything went haywire in the coop. 4 days ago, we came out to a couple bloody poops, and Henrietta in the nesting box with a pale comb, making sounds we had never heard out of our girls. I immediately quarantined her, collected the poo and took it to get tested, them followed all our other girls around to check their poop. It was a negative test (it was intestinal shed from a different girl) so we let Henrietta back out. Straight to the nesting box she went. All day today, she has been busting her butt to get back in to the coop, even getting herself stuck on top of a 8 foot tall fence....time for a date with the broody buster! THANK YOU for this thread, I always find the exact advice I'm looking for!

 

[DntBrnDPig]

My hen is in day 3 of the 'Time Out Pen'. She has yet to lay an egg - I've read that is a sure fire way of knowing she's back to normal. Do others experience this to be true?

(I haven't had time to read through all of the yet - so I don't know if thats been covered. Sorry if it has)

 

[Parkerizer]

I wouldn't expect her to start right back laying. It takes different lengths of time for different to really break them from setting. Some breeds that are really broody like cochins can take a week and then a little longer before their bodies start back on egg production. Just my experience.

 

[Angie Christine]

I broke mine in 24 hours. She was about 2 weeks in to being broody and enough was enough. I have also heard some that will wrap a cold ice back in a towel and slip in under her belly in order to bring down the body temp. But as long as you have a wire cage, add a roosting post and food and water. I put her in the run with the other girls and left her a full 24 hours. When we released her she totally forgot about being broody!

 

[bruceha2000]

I broke mine in 24 hours. She was about 2 weeks in to being broody and enough was enough. I have also heard some that will wrap a cold ice back in a towel and slip in under her belly in order to bring down the body temp. But as long as you have a wire cage, add a roosting post and food and water. I put her in the run with the other girls and left her a full 24 hours. When we released her she totally forgot about being broody!

I did that once with a Partridge Chantecler in the nest box. She melted 2 refreezable ice packs one after the other and was HOT under her breast.

I don't bother with a roost in the buster. It just sits up at 4' (the same level as the other roosts) in the coop. If I catch them early they sometimes break in a couple of days. If I give them the benefit of the doubt too long, it can take 4-5 days.

But I would NOT leave a girl in "jail" until she lays an egg. In my experience they generally don't lay for about 5 days after they stop being broody. No reason to be locked up during that time.

 

[SMAA77]

Hi. So it's my first time posting and I have a broody hen. And the world is a little ironic. Because I *just* gave some fertile eggs to my daughters classroom to hatch in an incubator. If I let the chicken brood and magically have week old chicks (they're staying at school for a week) in the hen house, would she mother them? / get out of her bloodiness? Or is that just silly?

 

[Parkerizer]

I've got one that's been in for 4 days and still clucking and acting broody. Bantams can be hard to stop. They usually wont start back laying for 4 or 5 days but you can put them back in the general population as soon as she stops acting like she would go right back on the nest and keep trying to set.

 

[bruceha2000]

Hi. So it's my first time posting and I have a broody hen. And the world is a little ironic. Because I *just* gave some fertile eggs to my daughters classroom to hatch in an incubator. If I let the chicken brood and magically have week old chicks (they're staying at school for a week) in the hen house, would she mother them? / get out of her bloodiness? Or is that just silly?

When you say "just" do you mean like 3 weeks ago since the incubation period is 21 days? And when did the hen go broody?

If the hen stays broody you might be able to get her to accept week old chicks. I don't know where the cut off is between believing a chick "hatched" overnight and "whoa, that is too big to be 'my' chick".

I had a hen that was broody the end of May last year so quick ordered 7 chicks from Meyer (because I needed some younger layers, the older birds being 3 at the time). They hatched June 8, I got them June 10th. Failed at my first ever attempt to stuff chicks under a hen that night (Maybe not dark enough? Maybe I was just too nervous when she started moving around??) but did it the next night so the chicks were 4 days old. She believed that she had hatched 7 chicks from 3 plastic eggs and raised them, chickens aren't always the smartest creatures. She had been broody about 14 days when she got the chicks.

But if "just" was "yesterday", I would not want to leave the hen broody for a month. If your luck runs like mine though, you might have a different hen go broody before you get the chicks back. I currently have 4 of my 9 older girls that have historically gone broody several times a year. In fact, when Zorra was broody, so was the Cubalaya that goes broody and one of the Faverolles (both go broody). I broke the Cubalaya since she is small and kept the Faverolles "in reserve" in case Zorra wasn't going to buy the "I hatched chicks" trick. As soon as it was obvious that she did, I broke the Faverolles but she ended up being the "Auntie" to the chicks. Daytime only and they never went to her for warmth but she and Zorra were out with the chicks for 2 months until Zorra laid an egg and kicked them to the curb. The "Auntie" stuck with them for a few more weeks. Of course they were well past getting under a hen for warmth by then.

 

[SMAA77]

No I mean like 3 days. The eggs are already at the school and are going to be incubated starting on Monday. She would get 4-5 day old chicks. Hoping for them to hatch on Monday and take them home on Friday. It would be awfully convenient if I could pass them off as hers

 

[Chick423]

Hi all! God I love this site! I need your help, I have a broody bantam that is going on her 4th week I figured I would see if she broke herself from it but doesn't look that way.....I take her out of the nest a couple of times daily and she eats, drinks, scratches, hangs out for a little bit then goes back, I don't want to "break" her of this cause well I wanna use this as an excuse to get chicks! Here's the thing, I don't have a rooster which means the eggs will never hatch, but my feed store just got a shipment yesterday and the chicks are a day old, if I got 2 for her how would I deal with that? Just put them underneath her? How would the other girls react? Would the babies be safe? Any help would be awesome!!