Mean girl attacking broody hen

[aart]

I do have her in a smaller than ideal wire dog crate, about 2 x 3 ft as our bigger, intended broody box is occupied by another chicken with its own issues.

Can you swap them out, give the broody the bigger space?

I’m surprised aart, that getting them out for a constitutional could break them, as when we’ve tried to break broodies, it’s taken far more than that.

I can break them, doesn't always tho...but if I wanted a bird to hatch I wouldn't toss them out of the nest.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Ok, I hate to do it, but I’m wondering if I should move her again... I’m looking at pictures now and see that we should have provided a box to hold the straw in place - we just put a big pile of straw at the back end, in a bowl shape, then shavings at the feed end. I have a large wire dog crate that I could place in the run, which is predator proof (knock on wood!). Not sure what I would put as a brooding box within this outdoor large dog crate. It would need to have rain protection, but stay cool, as overheating is a concern (Oklahoma - already heating up and she is not a heat tolerant breed). Worth doing versus leaving in smaller wire crate in coop? Any other suggestions?

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

For everyone following this thread, thought I’d post an update. We left 9 Ball in the smallish dog cage with 12 eggs from our own flock. We kept food and water at one end of the cage but never observed her off the nest. We were worried about her health, so we gently removed her from the nest every other day and set her in the coop or run. 9 Ball is very calm and trusting with us with her eggs, and later her chicks. She would quickly poop, eat, and drink then get back on her eggs, sometime with a little help. Mean girl hens continued to be mean, but not as aggressive. On day 19, we covered sides with cardboard to keep chicks in. All 12 hatched! 24 hr after hatching started, we moved all to a six ft broody cage in the run. They’ve been there ever since but are not integrated with flock. We are just starting to work on integration now. New question: most dominant hen (one of the mean girls) is now broody in nest box, which is only 12 x 12. We’d like to put eggs under her. What does everyone think of leaving a dominant hen in the coop nest box? We get her off the nest once per day, she does her thing and returns, for last four days, but I’ve seen some panting. Goal again is better integration of babies... We could also move her to the same smallish dog cage, or leave her where she is and move to broody cage once 9 Ball has integrated her chicks...