Moody Broody Astralorp, Advice Please!

[mommacb]

Okay, so we researched why our chicken was tearing out her belly feathers and hoarding OTHER chickens eggs while not laying her own... and then we promptly renamed her Broody, lol, moved her into a cage hanging in coop, made sure she was getting air on that white belly, eating/drinking, and still part of the pecking order by being seen by other chickens and...
there is some progress... like when i take her out of the cage, she heads outside and not to the box, and i often find her eating and nosing around the yard for hours at a time, but by three pm most days, she heads right back in to an empty nesting box and snuggles in and gets moody all over. When I lock her out of the coop, she nests in the dirt, but doesn't take a dirt bath, just settles in for hours. Any advice? Please don't say put her in the pot I don't want to eat these guys, I like my chickens and am usually pleased with 18 eggs per day from 19 chickens.

Can you rehab a moody broody or is it a waste of time??

 

[RoosterAddict99]

Honestly, I would let her just go ahead and hatch a couple of chicks. If this isn't possible... don't give her any bedding to make a nest, sepate her from the flock and move her to a dark room for a while. (this will mess up her laying cycle and if she doesn't have eggs, she can't try to hatch them.) When she does lay eggs, remove them from under her immediately. I used this technique to "rehabilitate" a broody minorca that I didn't think would stick it out all the way through the incubation process and it worked! Good luck!!!

 

[Jubilee1111]

I think you should let her hatch some chicks if she wants to. With my girls, I can break broody by hosing down their underside with cool water (while holding them) and locking them out of the nest but inevitably, they will go broody again within a month or so if you don't allow them to finish the job.

 

[mommacb]

she's cured!!! lol. it took about seven days of keeping her in the crate with no bedding and now she's a regular egg laying, normal chicken again. Very pleased with the advice I found by searching backyardchickens!