I'm not sure what's going on with my hen.

[Emojikitten]

Hello! I posted a forum a while ago about Ash's bad behavior, and I'm proud to say that she's better. She'll let me handle her now. Anyway, I was out on a trip for the weekend and I come home and she's acting really broody. I collected all the eggs and she still stays put in the nest. When I get too close to her, she'll scream at me (it sounds more like a bird chirping really loud). She was kept in the coop all weekend with good food and clean water and a lot of treats. She never acts broody. Is there something wrong with her or am I just worrying too much?

 

[Emojikitten]

If it helps, she's a small 1-year old black sex link.

 

[Chicka_deee]

I left for a weekend also and because the chickens were locked up in their coop with water and food, she was bored do they just go broody, it’s happened to me and she just was bored probably and now wants babies....

 

[aart]

She was kept in the coop all weekend with good food and clean water and a lot of treats. She never acts broody. Is there something wrong with her or am I just worrying too much?

She might be broody.
Did anyone check on them over the weekend?
Toss her off the nest and see what happens.

 

[Emojikitten]

She might be broody.
Did anyone check on them over the weekend?
Toss her off the nest and see what happens.

I had my dad watch her. She came off of the nest for the little bit. If she goes back on, I'll toss her off.

 

[aart]

These are the signs I look for:
Is she on nest most the day and all night?
When you pull her out of nest and put her on the ground, does she flatten right back out into a fluffy screeching pancake?
Does she walk around making a low cluckcluckcluckcluckcluck(ticking bomb) sound on her way back to the nest?
If so, then she is probably broody and you'll have to decide how to manage it.


If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, best to break her broodiness promptly.
My experience goes about like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest (or as soon as I know they are broody), I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop or run with feed and water.

I used to let them out a couple times a day, but now just once a day in the evening(you don't have to) and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two. Or take her out of crate daily very near roosting time(30-60 mins) if she goes to roost great, if she goes to nest put her back in crate.

Chunk of 2x4 for a 'roost' was added to crate floor after pic was taken.

 

[Emojikitten]

Thanks for your help! I'll keep an eye on her.

 

[Lizzy733]

I just had to break my silkie for the first time a few weeks ago.

If your girls lay in the morning and have adequate run shelter, you can try blocking off the coop entirely during the day- that finally did the trick for my girl.
For the evenings, just make sure she's on the perch after lights out - she'll likely not be adventurous enough to search out the boxes in the dark.