My 1st Broody w/pic and questions...

[chicks4kids]

I have an EE hen named Cheeks that just went broody. My kids found her stashing eggs in an old tractor tire a few weeks back. So I took all the frozen eggs out, and then realized I should've just left them there. So I started doing just that. Yesterday she started sitting. She's in a tractor tire in the kids' play area that is upright. Here's a pic of her in her tire....

So anyway, last night I tried to move her into a crate, removed all of her frozen/cracked/thawed eggs and gave her new ones. She didn't like it one bit refusing to sit down on those eggs. So I put her in the chicken coop for the night. This morning, I put nice new eggs in the tractor, let the chickens out and she immediately went to the tire and has been there ever since. Now to put her personality into perspective, she is not a hand raised hen. I got her in November from an overcrowded, undertaken care of place. She has always had her babies outside. So she's not too keen on my nosiness at this point. She was always friendly before she went broody. Now she's just irritated by me.

My question, I have a "duck house" that I have decided will work for her broodiness. Found a box just about the same size as the dimensions of her nesting area in the tire, and now I'm just wondering if I should try and move her again tonight, into that coop or just leave her in her tire which is completely open to predators and the elements. I want to move her, but I'm just not quite sure how to do it. Maybe I should let her sit on them for a few days? Which is scary because she is out in the open... We are still having freezing temps here and currently when the wind blows, so do her feathers, so she is NOT in a draft free place. I know I need to move her, I'm just trying to figure the best way.

Any advice or helpful tips on moving her would be great! Thanks!

 

[fordmommy]

I personally would move her. This is why. You said that her eggs were frozen and cracked. I would think that that would continue. I, again personally, would put her in something that doesn't give her a choice but to sit on the eggs. Something small and dark. And move her from the others. And her pecking you and biting you is normal.

Maybe this idea will work for you. Another BYC memeber near me suggests to use a Tidy Cat Litter bucket that has the lid that only 3/4 of the lid opens. You cut that part off and turn the box on the side with the lid still attached. Then she takes wire and cuts it a little bigger than the size of the opening and bends the edges. Now that wire should be able to slide up and down. She adds a little bedding and vawlah. A nice broody box.

I gotta make one and show pics. It really is an awesome idea.

 

[gckiddhouse]

Hi. Hope I can lend some experience to your situation. I am, by no means, an expert, but here is what I learned from our broody last year.

We had to move our broody because she was in a raised laying box and the other hens were picking on her and laying more eggs on top of her. Also, the little chickies would have fallen out of the box.

So we thought, as you probably did, that if you move the eggs, the hen will follow. However, what was evident (when that didn't work) was that it was the PLACE that she had picked out that was calling her. It didn't even matter if there were eggs in it or not. It was that spot that she MUST be in. Okay, so I just needed to convince her that a new spot was the place to be. That takes time and patience. We were using a rubbermaid bin as a nesting box in a nice big dog kennel. So all I had to do was put the lid on it. We tied it on so that she had no choice but to sit on the eggs. She spent the night in there like that. In the morning, I let the lid off to see what she would do. She ran to the door eager to get to the nesting box that was still calling her, so we put her back in the bin and tied the lid on. We kept her there until she no longer wanted to leave. By that afternoon, she had decided that she was okay in there. But even then, if she could get out of the kennel, she would run to that nesting box. We would have to take her out and put her back in the kennel and then she would go sit on the eggs. By the time she had been in there a few days, she was warmed up to that spot, and her eggs were in there, so she decided to stay.

You are just fighting her instincts. So work with her and she will stay put. I will add a pic so you can see what she was in. The space was small. i didn't want her to be able to sit anywhere except on the eggs.

Hope that helps.

 

[chicks4kids]

Well, with help from my husband we moved her into the duck house (which has been empty since last summer) into a box filled with leaves rather than pine bedding or straw. It's what her nest was made out of in the old tire, and I had bagged some up for the chickens to play in over the winter, so I brought it into the house so the leaves would be warm when we placed her and her eggs in there.

I did end up locking her in the box because she was not happy and the crunchy snow is not quiet...had to walk to the other side of the house to her new residence. I will open it up in the morning and see how she reacts.

gckiddhouse, i think you're right...if I just leave her in there long enough, she'll adjust to the peace and quiet of it all and realize it's a safe place for her-and much warmer.

Thanks for the advice you guys, sometimes I just need reassurance!!