Keeping a chicken broody (are there any tricks ? )

[kimb]

I have one hen (my cochin/silkie) girl who is broody more often than not! (she's happily and patiently sitting on some eggs due friday !

....

BUT

the other day I decided to "revamp" my chicken coop - I had previously just thrown things together and I just didn't like it anymore (so I added more nesting boxes & hung them lower - this resulted with a small space under neath that they could also nest in) and this is where I put my left over hay (from what I brought out of the barn to put in the nesting boxes) ... and suddenly my rosecomb cochinX (who has had no previous desire to be broody) won't get up and is SOME peeved when everyone else goes down to hang out with her

I left her, her egg (I think she might have 2 now because my little EE can't seem to lay unless she's cuddled with someone and she's locked out of the "maternity ward" where her best friend is)... but if this clutch I'm waiting on has a lower hatch rate then I'd like to get a few more eggs and see if this girl will hatch them (that way maybe my "consistently broody" can catch a break and enjoy her chicklettes

...

So aside from leaving her "her" eggs are there other tricks to the trade to keep her setting?

 

[debilorrah]

None at all!!!! A broody bird is as fickle as the wind. I have one that sat, and then my DH collected her eggs, so she gave up - for a day. Then he did it again!!!! I finally fired him from collecting and she is about a week on God only knows how many eggs. There is NO way to make a bird sit. They either do or they don't and sometimes its both.