PLEASE READ: Hen Acting Somewhat Broody With No Roosters and No Eggs

[SwampPrincessChick]

Oh. Also - the hen has no way of knowing whether the eggs are fertile or not, or even whether she is sitting on eggs or not. Her broody behavior is entirely hormone driven. She could be sitting on golf balls for all she knows, or cares.

I find it really funny when they do that, I have watched a video of broody hens sitting on light bulbs. It definitely seems like a hen's intelligence level drops drastically when she goes broody, LOL. One thing I have noticed is that my hens, both broody and non-broody, know the difference of fake eggs vs. real eggs. At one point, my hens were laying all over the place and I had to buy fake eggs to try to encourage them to lay in the nesting boxes. They now lay mainly in the nesting boxes, but my attempt at trying to encourage them failed, they decided on their own to switch. When I put the fake eggs in there, the hens would tap their beaks on each egg to see which ones sound different. They would then grab the fake eggs and throw them out of the nesting boxes, letting them roll down the coop's ladder and onto the ground. That was definitely a fail. I have no idea how they figured out that some must be fake in the first place, do they feel different when the hens are sitting on them?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

do they feel different when the hens are sitting on them?

I give mine golf balls and they don't seem to mind them at all one way or the other. When yours tap them, is it sound they're testing for? Density? Vibration? Would be curious to know. They don't sound dumb at all, actually. And ... how exactly did yours grab them and throw them out of the nests? Under their wings? Roll them with their beaks? Grab with their feet?

They would then grab the fake eggs and throw them out of the nesting boxes, letting them roll down the coop's ladder and onto the ground.

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

When yours tap them, is it sound they're testing for? Density? Vibration? Would be curious to know.

I assume sound, but I am not really sure because chickens can sense far more vibrations than humans. When my chickens started throwing out the fake eggs, I tapped the eggs myself and I could definitely hear a difference between fake and real.

And ... how exactly did yours grab them and throw them out of the nests? Under their wings? Roll them with their beaks? Grab with their feet?

It depends on how many fake ones they found. If there was only one in the nest at the time, they would pick it up with their beak and kind of forcefully set it down on the entrance to the coop so it would roll down to the ground. If they found more than one, they would use their wings to carry them.