How to Break a Broody Hen

[SueT]

What about breaking broodiness in hot weather? It's in the 90's here, 70's at night. Does anyway have experience with this? I have an Australorp that just went broody and I put her in the wire cage last night, locked in the back of our truck to protect from predators. Let her out briefly this am while I moved the cage to a cooler airier locale. The others are free ranging and she joined them for about an hour then beelined back to the nest. She's back in the cage. I tried breaking another a month ago with 2 new babies, but she rejected them. The cage worked fine for her, in 3 days, but it was a lot cooler then. Now I have the babies in one cage, the newest broody in another, still screeching at me. I don't suppose she'd want month old chicks......

 

[bruceha2000]

Quote:
Afraid I can't add anything to what @oldhenlikesdogs said. They will USUALLY take about week to restart laying after their broody bout ends. Only other possibility I can think of is MAYBE they are doing a mini-moult? None of my girls lay when they are moulting. The soft shelled egg is surely from one of the older girls, the BR is way too young.

What about breaking broodiness in hot weather? It's in the 90's here, 70's at night. Does anyway have experience with this? I have an Australorp that just went broody and I put her in the wire cage last night, locked in the back of our truck to protect from predators. Let her out briefly this am while I moved the cage to a cooler airier locale. The others are free ranging and she joined them for about an hour then beelined back to the nest. She's back in the cage. I tried breaking another a month ago with 2 new babies, but she rejected them. The cage worked fine for her, in 3 days, but it was a lot cooler then. Now I have the babies in one cage, the newest broody in another, still screeching at me. I don't suppose she'd want month old chicks......

Definitely harder in hot weather. Having her in the back of the truck probably didn't let her cool down much. Do you have the cage off the ground? You could maybe run a fan under her to make sure there is air moving under her breast. And no, she won't want month old chicks. You can only fool them so much!

 

[TraceeLynn430]

I knew I would find the information I needed when I came to this forum. Thank you to all who share your stories. We thought our three nest boxes would be more than enough for the five, LOL, chickens we are "allowed" to have ihave (or the dozen or so that we actually have.) The middle nest box was everybody's favorite, and that's pretty much the only place anyone ever laid her eggs. I somehow expected the Buff to go broody, but then she took the Polish with her, and then the Ameracauna! , The girls would be squawk g at the broodies to get out, so they could go do their business, ans a queue would actually form! (like planes ready to take off on the runway! ) At one point the Ameracauna was actually sharing the nest box with the Polish, and the girls were quite OK with that, LOL. I ousted everyone yesterday, and the girls spent a good amount time in the yard, and were actually some of the latest ones back into the coop, so we'll see how today goes, otherwise, I'll ensue the help of the Broody Buster method. It is just too plain hot for them to stay in the coop all day-the humidiiture yesterday was 105°! (Even the chickens in the yard were hot.) At first when I had to take them off the pile of eggs, I felt bad, since both of our roosters are about old enough to produce fertile eggs, but I quickly got over that, LOL Now I'm starting to wonder if we have any resistant ones, if I should just go ahead and see if they will hatched chicks out… thank you for all of the stories shared. I will report back in a couple of days to let y'all know how things went.

 

[mypetsrchickens]

My last thoughts are some chickens are bums. Some are inconsistent sporadic layers, I've had many over the years. For me it's not a problem because I get too many eggs. They may not be done but they just might not lay much. What breeds are they?

Otherwise I feed a higher protein ration, 18-20% which can sometimes help support laying, a layer ration is 16% protein which is minimum they should have to support laying. I also feed some scratch and corn which is lower in protein and can offset the total amount of protein they consume in a day. Corn runs around 8%. So either switching to an all flock or a non medicated grower could help, or even cutting out or down the corn to see if it prods them into action is something you could try.

Soft shell eggs are sometimes laid when a hen is firing up the system, so it could be from one of them. Look for bright red swollen combs and wattles which will indicate they are laying or are close to it.

I'm beginning to think they might just be bums. lol! I'm not sure of their breeds because I got them from my cousin. She has numerous breeds and they all intermingle. I just know two of them are white with yellow legs and one of them is black with slate gray legs.

We now know the soft shelled egg is coming from one of the white hens. We saw her lay one. She's laid 3 or 4 of them now. I've been giving them oyster shell so I hope that will help with the issue.

I've read on here on several occasions about the protein % being off. I'm beginning to wonder if that might be the issue. I've gotta run to the farm supply today to pick up some more grower feed so I'll check to see what else I can get for the other older hens. Maybe that will get them started again.

Thanks for the suggestions. At least now we have one putting forth some effort even if we still can't use the eggs. haha! Maybe she'll get her system back in order soon.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I'm beginning to think they might just be bums.  lol!  I'm not sure of their breeds because I got them from my cousin.  She has numerous breeds and they all intermingle.  I just know two of them are white with yellow legs and one of them is black with slate gray legs.  

We now know the soft shelled egg is coming from one of the white hens.  We saw her lay one.  She's laid 3 or 4 of them now.  I've been giving them oyster shell so I hope that will help with the issue.  

I've read on here on several occasions about the protein % being off.  I'm beginning to wonder if that might be the issue.  I've gotta run to the farm supply today to pick up some more grower feed so I'll check to see what else I can get for the other older hens.  Maybe that will get them started again.  

Thanks for the suggestions.  At least now we have one putting forth some effort even if we still can't use the eggs.  haha!  Maybe she'll get her system back in order soon.

If your grower is non medicated you can feed that to your laying hen. Always offer oyster shells in a separate bowl.

Sometimes soft shelled eggs are caused by stress and ruckus, which you sound like you might be having. The eggs come out before the shell is applied, most times is has nothing to do with a calcium need. Chickens like thing calm, quiet and routine.

 

[SueT]

Definitely harder in hot weather. Having her in the back of the truck probably didn't let her cool down much. Do you have the cage off the ground? You could maybe run a fan under her to make sure there is air moving under her breast. And no, she won't want month old chicks. You can only fool them so much!

Thanks, bruceha. Update, I moved my broody to the basement where it is a constant 71º. I have the cage up on blocks and a fan blowing under and at her. This will be day 3 in the cage, and day 2 in the basement. She definitely was still acting broody and shrieky this morning when I took her out for a short bit of freedom. We shall see. Thanks to advice here I've broken 2 other broodies in the past year.
Update on day 4, broody is broken. She's out free ranging with her sisters, bopping around happily.

 

[bruceha2000]

Thanks, bruceha. Update, I moved my broody to the basement where it is a constant 71º. I have the cage up on blocks and a fan blowing under and at her. This will be day 3 in the cage, and day 2 in the basement. She definitely was still acting broody and shrieky this morning when I took her out for a short bit of freedom. We shall see. Thanks to advice here I've broken 2 other broodies in the past year.
Update on day 4, broody is broken. She's out free ranging with her sisters, bopping around happily.

I let my broody 1 year old White Rock out this morning, she has been in 5 days I think. I am hoping she is broken, still maybe a bit clucky but has some of her "clown car horn" sound back and went around outside the barn foraging. Really funny that one, no idea what the buster was. The 5 older birds that have standing reservations put up quite a stink as soon as I pick them up out of the nest and they see the buster cage. Then they throw a fit wanting out.

Since my big BA that fostered the now 1 year olds is broody again, I have been working on partitioning the 4' long buster box into two. The WR just sat in there while removed the hardware cloth on the left side and I put a smaller door in. And she didn't even look when I took the door off the right side (it covered about 2/3 of the front) to put in a vertical board for the door to close against. As it sat after that, the hardware cloth on the right side was loosely held on with screws waiting for a second door on the right and a (hopefully) center section I can slide the food and water in to be accessed by both sides. She could have easily pushed her way out any time from Monday evening until this morning but nope.

In contrast, my Cubalaya that goes broody squeezed out of a crack no more that 1" at the top (door was hinged on the bottom) when I didn't have the door tied tightly enough. ANY of the birds that had previous knowledge of the buster box would have been out just as soon as I had taken the hardware cloth off the side, had the original door removed and would probably have pushed out the loose HC as soon as I turned my back.

Now that I have the extra hinges for the second door, I need to put that on and get "I am a lump of clay" Zorra in the box. Poor thing has been broody over a week and since I couldn't find a source for 4 day old sex links (not taking a chance other than from a good hatchery with a good sexing record) on getting a cockerel for cheap and not paying 3X more for shipping than what the chicks cost, I need to bust her.

 

[SueT]

What a saga, bruceha! I hope I don't ever have 2 broodies at once, knock on wood.
The first time one of our girls ( #1) went broody was last fall when they were about 7 months old. At the same time, #2 and #3 (I had 4) began laying eggs outside of their coop in our open garage shed in a tote of hay. I removed the tote and things finally went back to normal with everyone. Last week as described above, #4 went broody. She was only on the nest acting moody and screechy for one day when I removed her to the cage. But darned if #2 and #3 didn't find another nest area in the garage shed. I thought they had stopped laying due to the heat, but there, behind a pile of boards was their nest with a little pile of eggs in the hollowed out dirt. This time I left the nest there and lined it with hay and am even thinking about making an official nest box in there. Because in the coop are now the pair of month-old chicks (that failed to entice #1 when she went broody again last month,) they are in a fenced off corner, and who knows how that's going to come across to the others. Well #1 went in and had a fit when she saw them, and even left in a huff to the garage to check out the alternative nest, but it didn't feel right and she went back to the coop and laid an egg in the nest box, babies or no. She's a RIR, and the Boss, and hopefully, the others will follow suit.
ps #1 had been broody almost a week when we got the 2 chicks. We drove (it's an hour and a half ) to Estes hatchery in Springfield, on a hatch day, and so the chicks were only hours old when introduced to #1, not even a day old. Surely they still had that new baby smell. But she wanted to kill them. She was definitely broody, but I guess it wasn't for long enough or she's just mean. She took 3 days in the cage to bust after the chick intro failure. BTW we got all four hens from Estes, so far so good on their sexing-- and the 2 youngsters still look very much like pullets.

 

[velzy]

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[kkim]

The broody buster cage advise in this thread has been most helpful! I'm using the Havahart cages turned sideways and they are the perfect size for a hen and sometimes two if they are congenial with each other. A plastic dog crate feed/water dish will clip onto the sides and they seem to leave it alone without knocking it off or stepping in it.

This is my first flock and I'm having a terrible time with repeat offenders! Out of 29 hens I have three who have been broody four times now this spring and several others with two under their belts. I break them after 3-5 days (they are determined) and after a week of being back in the flock will lay again for another week and then go broody again! I had two others besides these who were going broody back to back and I re-homed them to someone who was looking for a broody hen. I collect eggs throughout the day and leave the light on in the coop so it's not too cozy dark and it doesn't seem to matter to these girls. They are all around one year of age so still pretty young in their laying careers. Some of the other girls broke right away and haven't shown any signs of a second attempt so far. They have a pretty large area to free range on most of the day so there should be lots of distractions with other chicken-y things to do.

I am wondering if they will continue this into the fall/winter and also wondering if this will be how they are for life or will they eventually snap out of it and be just an occasional broody hen vs. repeaters? It's definitely putting a dent in their laying and sooo much extra work trying to break them. I'm trying to make a decision about their futures here with us or if I should also re-home them. They are such sweet girls I am torn. I can handle an occasional broody but am getting impatient with the repeaters even with their sweet personalities.

Would love to know what others have experienced long term with this?