Need advice on broody pullet!

[JellyrollBrahma]

Hi there, hope you are enjoying BYC!

She is likely eating at least once or twice per day, you just aren't seeing her.

I would break her or move her either way. I break pullets and they (she) WILL sit again. I haven't yet had a gal go broody only once in her life. And the ones that do so this early into laying are often excessively broody in my experience.

Main issue I see is she is predator bait sitting in an unsecured location.

Best wishes!

After I read your comment, I saw her off the nest for the first time. She went right back to it, so she must have gotten a stretch, snack and poop haha. Thank you! I was worried most about her eating.

 

[JellyrollBrahma]

Hi! she will will be fine if she is in good health, what breed is she? People have hatched from broodies in winter with success. The thing is do you want chicks with a 50/50 chance of being roosters?

I don't mind roosters. We have decided to raise chickens for duel purpose. I am pretty sure she is a Partridge Rock. We got her from someone who didn't give us much info, so I searched to find the closest match and that fit.

 

[Cryss]

Is the rooster also a partridge rock?

 

[JellyrollBrahma]

Is the rooster also a partridge rock?

No, he is an EE who just recently began to try and mate with the girls. So there would only be a few eggs potentially fertile.

 

[Cryss]

No, he is an EE who just recently began to try and mate with the girls. So there would only be a few eggs potentially fertile.

Gonna be some interesting babies if they are fertile. Have you tried candling to see if they are? If they aren’t then you definitely need to break her broodiness.

 

[JellyrollBrahma]

Gonna be some interesting babies if they are fertile. Have you tried candling to see if they are? If they aren’t then you definitely need to break her broodiness.

I did tonight and so far 2 of the eggs definitely have growth. The rest probably need a few more days to tell.

So what do you do it hens keep laying eggs where she is sitting and she continues to gather more and more underneath her?

 

[Cryss]

I did tonight and so far 2 of the eggs definitely have growth. The rest probably need a few more days to tell.

So what do you do it hens keep laying eggs where she is sitting and she continues to gather more and more underneath her?

Get those eggs that she is sitting on marked with a marker or something so you know which ones to leave in the nest. Then collect any unmarked eggs daily. Someone may have better ideas of what to use to mark your eggs.

 

[rehdancer]

I just realized (I think) that I have the same situation. I have no roosters, so no danger of hatching in the winter, but my lady is a bantam, the only one in my flock, and lowest in the pecking order. It seems she stayed on the nest all night last night and is on the nest now. Since she's usually not allowed on the top rung of the roost to share the warmth with the other hens she could be warmer staying a nest box. I guess I'm not seeing a problem except that I wasn't expecting a broody hen at less than a year old and in the winter, am I missing something?

 

[Cryss]

I know @aart likes to wait for 3 days just to see how dedicated a hen is. If she stays on the nest for that long all day @aart will break their broodiness.

 

[aart]

These are my go to signs on if a bird is broody or not:
Is she on nest most the day and all night?
When you pull her out of nest and put her on the ground, does she flatten right back out into a fluffy screeching pancake?
Does she walk around making a low cluckcluckcluckcluckcluck(ticking bomb) sound on her way back to the nest?
If so, then she is probably broody and you'll have to decide how to manage it.

If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, best to break her broodiness promptly.
My experience goes about like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest (or as soon as I know they are broody), I put her in a wire dog crate (24"L x 18"W x 21"H) with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop or run with feed and water.

I used to let them out a couple times a day, but now just once a day in the evening(you don't have to) and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two. Or take her out of crate daily very near roosting time(30-60 mins) if she goes to roost great, if she goes to nest put her back in crate.

Chunk of 2x4 for a 'roost' was added to crate floor after pic was taken.