My broody is sitting well.
She started looking pale the other day. I started giving her extra protein (half an egg, a spoonful of peanut butter, I try to vary it and tend toward eggs and use peanut butter as back up) and her color is coming back pretty well.
Her stools look very wet on some days and well-formed on others. ???Help???
I gave a friend six eggs from her before she started brooding. My friend said that none of those eggs hatched. I do have three LF eggs in the 'bator, but I haven't had any good hatches (I've hatched one chick out of six hatches totaling over 40 eggs set), so I'm not holding my breath to have chicks from the incubator to slip under, necessarily.
What would you do????
I always worry about a pale bird, and brooding puts an extra stress on their system.
First, make sure that she's staying hydrated. Broodies don't always drink enough water. What you can do to intervene will depend on how tame she is, and how much she tolerates being handled while she's brooding. Sometimes just adding a wonderful flavor (like peanut butter) to water will make them drink more. Sometimes you can put scratch in the bottom of a shallow water bowl and they'll drink water while pecking at the scratch. Sometimes you can dip a favorite treat in water immediately before offering it (that works great for healthy breads or pancakes, which soak up water well but take a few moments to become totally soggy and fall apart). Sometimes you can syringe water into their mouth easily. You don't have to hold her head. You can just put the tip of the syringe (without a needle, very important) up to the side of her beak and very slowly push out water, essentially drop by drop. You'll find a "sweet spot" on either side of her beak that will suck the water in instead of it just dripping out. It will then slowly accumulate in her mouth until she swallows it. Sometimes a bird will shake it out and you get a shower, but that's part of the process! If she's shaking out the water frequently, then she doesn't want any more. It's slow going, but pretty stress free in most birds, and quite effective.
Second, if her nutrition isn't adequate, improve it. With broodies, the most common reason their nutrition isn't adequate is because they're not eating, or not eating enough. So what they get has to be high enough in calories to do the job in small volumes, and be good enough quality to provide the necessary nutrients. But it also has to be well tolerated by their digestive tract. Most chickens can eat almost anything, so that's rarely a concern. But occasionally a hen will have food sensitivities, or not be able to tolerate rapid food changes, or not be able to tolerate high fat diets, or need more fiber, so it can be important to keep a record of what you feed, just so that if there's problems you can look back and see if there's likely to be a dietary cause. If possible, offer a variety of healthy foods at the same time so she can get her fill. Fisherlady has previously posted a wonderful treat list that she uses to feed her broodies. I like the peanut butter idea, but sometimes peanut butter can be a bit sticky for a chicken to eat well, and they get frustrated when it sticks to their beak and they have to wipe their beaks repeatedly. But my chickens love peanuts that are crushed into smallish pieces, or chewed for them by me and then spit out onto the ground (I know, gross, but lots of momma birds do it). That way it's not sticky like peanut butter, but still small enough to not cause an intestinal blockage. But only use human grade peanuts (or other nuts). Almost all nuts have some amount of aflotoxin in them, which is a type of toxic mold. It's not dangerous in small amounts, but gets more dangerous as the concentrations of the toxin rise. The maximum amount of aflotoxin allowed in nuts intended for human consumption is much lower than the maximum allowance for nuts intended for animal consumption. So the human quality product is much safer for a sick broody. Be sure that she is offered other things at the same time as her peanuts, as the high fat and lower fiber levels can cause some digestive problems when given as a solitary item when a bird isn't used to it.
Third, identify and eliminate any parasites. The biggest issues would be mites and coccidia, but all intestinal parasites are of concern when a bird is pale. If there's a large infestation, they can drain enough blood to make her anemic, which would cause paleness (not all pale birds are anemic -- they can become pale from almost any illness). So check her for mites, especially around the vent, and use an effective dusting powder if you find any. You don't have to turn her into a dustball -- just dust in all 4 directions around the vent and tail, then a little under each wing, a touch on the skin on the back of the neck, and a tiny bit under the feathers on the back should be plenty. The mites move around but like these areas the most. And depending on where you live, don't forget to check her head and fluff area for ticks. Most birds will pick off ticks on any areas they can reach well, but can't easily remove them in these areas. Also, either give her a broad-spectrum dewormer, or have a fecal test done to check for microscopic parasite eggs. Many birds will live with minor parasite loads all year round, but then the stress of brooding weakens their immune systems and the parasites can flourish to the point of causing illness. The variable stools can be caused by parasites, or diet changes, or hormones. The water loss through her stools means she has to drink even more water to keep from getting dehydrated, so it's important to minimize fecal water loss as much as possible. So deworming can be very beneficial, and monitoring diet and fecal quality to see if there's a relationship can help you resolve that issue. There's nothing you can do if it's hormonal, as that's just how she's built. All of my Barnevelders get watery poop whenever they're laying, and are completely normal when not cycling. It's just a trait within that line.
And lastly, or perhaps it should have been firstly, you have to decide how sick she is, how well she's improving with what you're able to do, and whether it is worth it to allow her to continue brooding. Brooding can be very hard on some hens, and some may not do well through the process. If she's not sitting on eggs, and you're unlikely to have the incubator eggs hatch, you may be taking the risk with her for no reason at all.
