is my chicken broody or ill

[atwickwitch]

hello, advice please. (again)
one of my cuckoo morans aged about 2 (lulu) wont come off the nest.
i bought two speckled sussex GIRLS in august when they were little babies. one of them it turns out is a boy but i didnt know this until last week.the clue was he was jumping on top of every hen he possibly could pin down. lulu was one of the unlucky (or lucky im not sure) ones to get ravaged by him last week.
since then she wont budge. she hasnt laid an egg and isnt bothered about sitting on any of the other hens eggs so i didnt know if she was ill or broody. i thought if she was broody she would of been sitting on an egg whether it be hers or anyone elses but shes not. i have picked her up a few times and taken her outside but for some reason all the other chickens go for her. this hasnt happened before as they are a friendly lot usually.
she just picks her legs up and runs back into the shed and sits in her bed.
i dont understand why the others have turned against her and cant work out why she refuses to come out. although to be fair if i had 12 other girls attacking me and a male jumping on top of me i wouldnt come out of bed either.
she is eating, i am taking her milk, egg and cheese all warmed up together which she gobbles down. her nest is very clean, as she is not going to toilet in it. is this normal?
any help or suggestions please. i would be extremely grateful as i dont like my chickens being upset.. many thanks again atwickwitch

 

[Pele]

When you say 'ravaged' do you mean that he just roughly mated her, or he actually wounded her?

If she has visible injuries, I would say your girl is trying to heal. It is possible that she's now scared of the rooster too, and hiding.

If she's talking to herself a lot, fluffs at you when you approach, growls, flattens herself out as muuuuch as possible on the nest, then she's broody.

 

[ChickensRDinos]

If she is suddenly in the box all day and sleeping in there she is likely broody. She also will have likely pulled out the feathers on her chest/underside. It is an instinct behavior and has nothing to do with being mated or having fertilized eggs. She doesn't know which eggs are hers, she is likely just sitting on the ones in the box she likes.

If she is broody she will only get down once a day, maybe less to eat and poop. As a general rule its better to place food a little away from the nest - if you feed her in the nest it is more likely that she will poop in there.

What do you mean the others have turned against her? Is she being pecked out while she is brooding? When did the bullying start?

 

[atwickwitch]

hi, she has been in her box for coming up to a week now.
i have picked her up and taken her outside a few times today but each time i have, any chicken near her has attacked her which has never happened before
i have three nest boxes. the chickens alway lay in two of them, these are small boxes. the larger one they tend to sleep in sometimes.
it is the empty one that she is laying in.
she can see the other two boxes and can see there are eggs in these but doesnt seem to be interested. this is why i am confused. if she was laying on the eggs i could understand that she is just broody but she is not.
she is two and has never been broody before but then none of them have. it is only since the male started mating with the hens that this has happened. she went into her box the day he mated and she hasnt been out since. she seems to of become really timid which she never was before.
she doesnt fluff up her feathers or growl at me when i pick her up and neither does she try to peck me, infact she seems more placid now than ever before. nor has she pecked any of her feathers out that i can see.. any more advice would be welcome.. atwickwitch

 

[ChickensRDinos]

Pele has a good point. Her behavior seems odd and it is possible he was rough and hurt her. Chickens will attack and kill sick and injured birds as an instinctual way of protecting the flock. They could also be picking up on an injury. I would give her a really good look over to see if anything is amiss and then keep her isolated so you can observe her and help her heal.

If it turns out she was just broody then no harm done.

 

[atwickwitch]

i will do that tomorrow. i cant see any visible marks on her but then i havent been looking for any. she is eating and drinking though which is always good...thankyou for all your help bright blessings to all that offered advice.. atwickwitch