Moving a broody?

[E_Em_mom]

We have a buff orphington who is currently full blown broody...the only catch is we have a roll away nest box so there is nothing for her to actually lay on. So we setup our smaller "hospital coop" inside the fenced-in flock area and we made her a sweet little straw lined nest with 8 eggs. We moved her there cause obviously she can't hatch anything with a roll away nest box and her just being broody to be broody is not healthy for her. The problem is now that we moved her she seems to have no interest in laying on the new nest of eggs. We currently have her kinda "trapped" up in the nest section of the coop with food and water hoping she decides to put her broodiness to good use. She goes broody quite frequently so we thought with spring coming we would let her try and be a mama. Any other suggestions?

 

[bpoore04]

As long as she doesn’t seem to take interest in the eggs right now I would let her join the rest of the flock. If she takes a notion to be broody again I would put her back in there.

 

[nchls school]

Let the hen return to the roll away nest. If the nest can't be made broody friendly, try moving her after dark to a different nest. This nest should be made to look as close to the roll away as possible. Good luck.

 

[CoChiChick]

I have a speckled Sussex who is on day 4 of sitting. She started sitting in our main nest boxes, of which we only have 3, but other girls were piling in and at one point, she even moved to another box.

We attempted a day time move and she didnt like it. One egg even got cracked in the process, so after dark last night, I went out and moved her and the eggs back to the hutch brooder I got set up.

So far today, we are good, but even after she took a quick break to eat, drink, and poop, she headed back to her favorite nest. This time though, she was easily able to coax back to the egg nest. I just picked her out of the nest boxes and showed her where the other nest was and she settled in. Then I closed the door. She has food and water in there so she should be ok until evening time when I will open the door for her to stretch and visit the flock if she wishes.

I have read that 2 or 3 nights in a nest box is usually a good indicator that a hen is truly going broody, and if any moves must be made, use the dark to your advantage. It was definitely much less stress on my hen to move her after dark. I've only had chickens for just over a year, and this is my first ever broody gal, but this info was definitely helpful to me!
Good luck and happy brooding!

 

[nchls school]

Having nest boxes the can be easily moved to different locations also helps when moving a broody hen.

 

[CoChiChick]

Having nest boxes the can be easily moved to different locations also helps when moving a broody hen.

This! Our nest box was a freebie that was given a facelift. Sadly, nothing easily movable will fit inside, and they themselves are a set of 3 and cannot just be moved. Future nest boxes will have this is mind though, and will be fabricated accordingly.

 

[50-45-1]

I agree that your broody moves should be done at night.
I have success moving broodys at night to my broody hutches with about 90 percent result.
The broodys new location should be dark, quiet and not be accesable to other hens.
Some broodys just Refuse a new location no matter how nice it is.
Last spring i built 2 broody hutches. I used all scrap and reclaimed materials. I just moved a broody last week to one and she has settled right in.