Need Help with my first broody girl!

[ScottsdaleChick]

I have two golden sex link hens around 1 and 1/2 yrs old. One of the girls has gone broody within the last few days. I really don't want to have to confine her to a wire cage. Will just closing off access to the nesting boxes so there isn't a dark, warm spot to brood do the trick? Thanks for all your help!

 

[donrae]

You can sure try it. Some hens are easier to break than others. Some are more determined and will just hunker down in any corner, or even scratch out a place in the middle of the run and still be broody. That's why the wire cage is a good thing, it encourages air to circulate under neath the hen and keep her underside cooler. That seems to help disperse the broody hormones.

 

[deacons]

I dealt with this for the first time this year with a year old Golden Laced Wyandotte. She's gone off the deep end on me twice since about May.

The first time, I read frantically to try to figure out what to do with her, and like you, I felt bad about the wire cage- I'd put her in it for a few hours, then let her rejoin the girls, only to have to drag her out of the nest again. I'd let her roost with them at night, only to find her sleeping in the nest in the morning. We went on like this for 5 or 6 days before she was back to normal.

The 2nd time she went broody, I had been out of town for the weekend (though I thought I saw her start to do the "zombie walk" the Friday I went away)- when I came home on Sunday, my poor sweet "chicken babysitter" texted me frantically to say she was worried something was wrong, because "Broody" hadn't been off the nest all weekend and tried to attack when it was time to collect eggs each day. I pulled her off the nest Sunday afternoon and she had stashed 15-20 eggs underneath her (I felt so bad, taking all the weekend eggs was part of the payment I had offered the chicken sitter!!). This 2nd time, I didn't feel bad at all about trying to "break" her- I put her in the wire cage with a fan on her continuously- she was in the cage day and night, with about an hour outside free ranging with the flock with the coop and run completely shut off. After about 3 days/nights, she snapped out of it. I am now a believer in the cage-and-fan method to get them over it as quickly as possible.