Resettling a broody

[michickenwrangler]

OK,

These dang hybrids keep going broody on me! DD forgot to collect eggs yesterday and when I went out this morning to feed, one of our Black Stars was parked on the eggs, feathers puffed and growling at me-biting me when I tried to shove her off and collect eggs.

OK, she's broody. I get the cat carrier, fence off a corner of the run with the portable fencing and stick some straw and eggs in the carrier. I put the hen in there. She ignores the eggs, paces the fenceline wanting back in with her friends.

OK, she's not broody. I put her back in her original pen. She marches right back onto the nest and plunks herself down, puffs up her feathers and growls at me when I check on her.

OK, she's broody.

So how do I get her settled into the new place?

Tips appreciated. Thanks

 

[emys]

She's a picky broody. Wants her same spot.

Try moving her just as darkness is falling. Take her and her eggs and put her on the eggs in a very quiet dark place. Leave her til morning. Usually that will do it. By morning they have sort of forgotten they have been moved and are re-focused on the eggs.

Good Luck.

 

[pgpoultry]

This is what I do....place a cardboard box where she is nesting...just big enough to put straw and eggs and hen in....the hen usually goes back and into the box. I leave things like this for about a week. I then (under cover of darkness), lift the box with the hen and her eggs and place inside the new area.

If you choose this method, don't blame me if the police turn up to find out what you are doing roaming about in the dead of night with torches and boxes.

 

[emys]

If you choose this method, don't blame me if the police turn up to find out what you are doing roaming about in the dead of night with torches and boxes.roll

Don't tell me this really happened to you?!?​

 

[michickenwrangler]

I just went out to check on her and she's roaming around the chicken run, NOT sitting on eggs, so it may have been a short-lived desire to have children. But, thank you, I will keep this advice in mind. Maybe in the spring she'll REALLY get down to business.

 

[pgpoultry]

I live out in the sticks where cockerels can crow, cows moo, sheep baa, and folk roam about in the middle of the night....clothed or not....and there's nobody to complain.(Well one neighbour about half a mile away who is as mad as we are

). When I lived in the city, curtains would twitch whenever I went to put the rubbish out let alone move a hen

!

 

[shaggy]

trap her on the nest in total darkness for 24 hours


a box in a box works well