Part-time broody?

[chickiemom3]

Our 10 month old Buff Orp has been displaying some strange behavior. She acts like she has gone broody: staying on the nest long periods of time, fluffing up when anyone or another chicken comes near, hissing and screeching like something out of Jurassic Park. I've heard that Orpington's go broody at the drop of a hat, so doesn't seem so strange....except she only does it a few hours out of every day. She is exceptionally tame with people, so she doesn't give us any problems collecting eggs, amd if we remove her from the nest, she will shake her feathers out and go about her day. If the other girls are doing something that seems interesting (food...interesting always means food to my girls), she will hop right off and join the others. Same with free ranging time. This has been going on about 2 months. We haven't tried to "break" her of the broody cycle because it hasn't caused any problems, hasn't prevented her from eating/drinking, etc. I'm sure the other girls would like her to quit hogging the "good" nest, but other than that, no real issues. It just seemed strange to me and I haven't had much luck finding other posts describing the same behavior, so thought I would ask if anyone has had chickens acting in this way. I work during the day, so I couldn't say exactly how long she is on each day, but I would guess 4-5 hours? She does not sleep in the nesting box.

 

[HensOnCornish]

Hi! Is she laying? I have a cochin hen (pictured to the left) who literally tries to raise babies from March until November each year, who behaves in a similar way to what you describe. She therefore doesn't lay well, but I just adore her, she's a fantastic mother to chicks and ducklings alike. I've had orpingtons and I agree, they are DEFINITELY broody but they are just so calm and tame around people for sure. She may just be part of my hen's "weird brooder" club! Good luck to you!!

 

[Pstock44]

One of mine did that for about a week or so. I decided to put a couple of fake eggs under her cause we did want chicks. Almost right away she started sitting on them constantly. After 3 days of that I put a dozen eggs under her and now we have 8 happy new chicks. 4 eggs were lost due to situations I had to correct during my learning curve.

 

[chickiemom3]

She does lay almost every day. She seems to sit after she lays. As I said, we aren't terribly concerned about it, but it seemed so strange. I just raised chicks to 5 weeks old in the brooder in the house. Wish I had thought to ask earlier...oh well, back to cleaning up dust. Thanks for the replies!

 

[kwoodle89]

Hello, I was curious how your chicken is doing? I have a RIR who has been acting like this for about a month. She sits on the nest and the other girls will snuggle next to her and lay their eggs. She does the broody growl and shriek, but comes out after a few hours, when I come out with treats, or when she gets bored I think. Normally, she has been good and I can grab the eggs from underneath her but today she kept pecking at me until I stopped trying to get the eggs. I'm not sure what to do so I wanted to see if your girl had stopped or if you found a "cure" for the parttime broodiness.

 

[aart]

She does lay almost every day. She seems to sit after she lays. As I said, we aren't terribly concerned about it, but it seemed so strange. I just raised chicks to 5 weeks old in the brooder in the house. Wish I had thought to ask earlier...oh well, back to cleaning up dust. Thanks for the replies!

I have a couple hens that do this......some like to lounge before and/or after laying.
They screech if disturbed, but do let me get eggs.

 

[trixt]

Not sure if this is right place to ask this but having trouble navigating the pages


I have a delemma i found a nest of eggs from one of my hens so instead of bring them in because the have been sitting out in the heat so i put them in the coop there was a chicken sitting on the eggs from today so i put them there. She pecked at me because she thought i was going to take her eggs now my delemma is no one is sitting on them ive never left eggs for the hens to hatch so im not sure of normal chicken routine it is around 77f during the day....when i locked them up last night still no chicken on eggs. But there was 3 hens sitting on them this morning but again by lunch they wander off do i just bring in and incubate

 

[NewChickmom2016]

My black australorp does the same thing! She LOVES sitting in the nest box. Will sit there for hours, lay an egg and sit there some more. She fluffs all up and tells me off if I peek in. I'm thinking she just enjoys being in there.....