Ribh's D'Coopage

Thank you. I've got lots of questions because I'm trying to establish my own best practice.

Firstly, I assume sometimes at your place a hen will go broody in a nest which is safe by day but unsafe by night. Do you leave them to sit overnight or do you put them in their coop?

Second, do you ever use the "jail" technique to snap a hen out of her broodiness?

Third, how long do you let a hen sit before taking her eggs and messing up her nest?

I've been ignoring Peggy all day long but putting her in the henhouse against her wishes at night. After three days, she decided not to bother, but I think the back neighbour's scary (for chickens) and loud building noises have played a role in her decision making.

1) If I find them on day one and they have nested outside I move them that night.
Depending on whether I'm going to let the hen sit, or sit and hatch, dictates where I put them.
I don't always find them on day one and in the recent past (last couple of years) I try to follow them back to their nest when they leave the nest to eat and drink. My worst recent performance has meant a hen sat out at night for three nights.

2) I have never used the conventional broody jail technique.
I have confined stubborn broodies to my house and kept them on the floor which is concrete, which is cool and not particularly comfortable. At night I put them on a roost in their tribes coop. I collect them first thing in the morning and put them back in my house. I did have one of those toddler frames and have kept a couple in that to keep them from under my feet.
A Marans hen called Mora holds the stubbornness record and that was three days in my house.

3) This depends on various things. Three days is the usual. On the third night I take them off the nest and place them on a roost in their tribes coop.
For hens I've found in outside nests who I want to stop laying, I put them in a nest box with some of their eggs. Sometimes they desert the new nest. I have to wait for the next opportunity in such cases to switch off their laying cycle.

I have done what you describe with Peggy in the past and it has worked. The problem can be I want that nest site availible for other hens to lay their eggs in. I get this with the house nest box and have to remove the eggs until a hen comes to lay an egg and put a few in and remove them once she's laid.
 
1) If I find them on day one and they have nested outside I move them that night.
Depending on whether I'm going to let the hen sit, or sit and hatch, dictates where I put them.
I don't always find them on day one and in the recent past (last couple of years) I try to follow them back to their nest when they leave the nest to eat and drink. My worst recent performance has meant a hen sat out at night for three nights.

2) I have never used the conventional broody jail technique.
I have confined stubborn broodies to my house and kept them on the floor which is concrete, which is cool and not particularly comfortable. At night I put them on a roost in their tribes coop. I collect them first thing in the morning and put them back in my house. I did have one of those toddler frames and have kept a couple in that to keep them from under my feet.
A Marans hen called Mora holds the stubbornness record and that was three days in my house.

3) This depends on various things. Three days is the usual. On the third night I take them off the nest and place them on a roost in their tribes coop.
For hens I've found in outside nests who I want to stop laying, I put them in a nest box with some of their eggs. Sometimes they desert the new nest. I have to wait for the next opportunity in such cases to switch off their laying cycle.

I have done what you describe with Peggy in the past and it has worked. The problem can be I want that nest site availible for other hens to lay their eggs in. I get this with the house nest box and have to remove the eggs until a hen comes to lay an egg and put a few in and remove them once she's laid.
Thanks Shad, that's very helpful.

ontce the new henhouse is built, I won't need to worry so much because every nest will be a safe nest, and there will be plenty of other nests available for the others to lay in, so it won't matter if a broody sits overnight.
 
Well it turns out the ladder in the greenhouse was uneventful. Apparently, the ladder is the poultry anti-Christ. I gave them some feed to distract them and they left the feed to go as far away from the ladder as possible. And the two shiny new feeders are likely some sort of atomic bomb as they stay at least 20 feet away from them. Once the ladder was gone, they all had to supervise as I worked on the chains, but when I brought the feeders in, that was totally different. :gig
 
This is Tackle. She's been sitting on some eggs in the maternity unit outside my house for the last couple of days. Normally I would wait until dark to evict her and confiscate her eggs. However, she hasn't been leaving her nest for long enough during the day. She hasn't had a bath for a couple of days and an egg I hadn't noticed before got broken and the ants have moved in. Needless to say she wasn't impressed about being evicted. I'm reasonably certain her egg laying cycle is switched off so it's try again another day for Tackle.
P4143182.JPG
P4143183.JPG
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom