OMG everybody's Broody!

[NewcoopNewpoop]

Kind of makes evolutionary sense to all go broody at once around springtime.

 

[ChookaPete]

I have bresse from several different breeders. I don't recommend them personally. At least not from any of the breeders I purchased from. Not been a good experience all the way around. Partly because we don't feed like they do in France I'm sure. I have done a milk fed/fermented feed batch of breese roosters out though and wasn't impressed with the weights over the other's we raise. Plus they were quite aggressive with each other. Really needed to be in individual pens which wasn't doable for that many. I have not had any weight much more than our standard dual purpose birds to date personally. Slowly culling them out of the flock. Have a fortune in them.
I've not had any bad moms to date with the Australorps.

Wow!


What size of yard did you have them in?

I only heard of Bresse chickens once, in chef Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection where he sought to make his perfect Roast Chicken, and chose Bresse meat birds. He visited a poultry farm in France that raised Bresse, and they had a flock on a huge paddock that looked to be at least a few acres in size. They did also mention about feeding them wheat and milk along with them grazing on grass.

 

[ChookaPete]

Kind of makes evolutionary sense to all go broody at once around springtime.

I am in late Autumn and I suspect I might have another broody hen on my hands! My Leghorn cross Chamomile was fixed in her nest for a while and broodily screeching at other hens that came near her. However one of them managed to shoo her out of the nest! I checked on her this evening and she was roosting on the perch with the flock.

 

[The blue egg estate]

Mostly venting here but i have 12 hens and 4 are broody! We don't have a rooster, nor do we have space for more chickens so I put the first one in broody jail, and now I added another to the cell (LOL) but they are an atrocity to clean - having them in a crate for a full day you have to clean the nasty poops and grates, and then do it again in the morning - and now I have two more broodies! My husband is outside trying to build a bigger and easier-access for cleaning broody jail but this is ridiculous! Why are so many broody this year? I usually only have the same two broodies but this year, I have three additional broodies - I just broke one of the annual broodies but have four more now! Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?

El Niño?! I feel your pain. I have one imprisoned already and 2 more that are showing more aggression than usual, so I’m feeling they’re a day or two away from isolation therapy. I blame it on the Midwest bipolar weather confusing my girls. But I blame everything on the Midwest weather, so there’s that too…

 

[The blue egg estate]

It's just that time of year! Plus it's contagious.

I have 3 broody out of 9 hens right now.

Forget broody jail, I just close off the nest box for a few days and don't let anyone access it. Sure, they lay a few eggs on the coop floor but that doesn't matter, it's only temporary. When they can all behave (sit, lay, leave) then they get the nest box back.

That is brilliant

 

[Just Ranchin]

Wow!


What size of yard did you have them in?

I only heard of Bresse chickens once, in chef Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection where he sought to make his perfect Roast Chicken, and chose Bresse meat birds. He visited a poultry farm in France that raised Bresse, and they had a flock on a huge paddock that looked to be at least a few acres in size. They did also mention about feeding them wheat and milk along with them grazing on grass.

I don't remember the sizes of our grow out pens. We have raised groups in the same pens for several decades. We move them around for fresh grazing. We feed milk to all our grow outs. Both by fermenting their feed in it, fresh or clabbered when we have that available. We have a lot of milk so it's a great way to put some to use. Raise hogs the same way.

 

[DoswellGuy]

I just finished going thru a broody (took several weeks in isolation). When she returned to the others, they attacked her as if she had never been with them before. Took several days for everyone to calm down, but order is now restored.