Sick or broody production red hen?

[Sakmeht]

My friend has a broody Buff Orpington that has been sitting tight for the last three days. Her production red hen has been acting weird lately and I told her that broodiness can spread through the hens... but this red hen will wander around and occasionally sit for a couple of minutes and cluck with a totally new sound my friend has never heard before. To me it sounds like a food call. She'll get up, find a tight or enclosed area in the garden and sit for a few minutes then get up again and wander and do it all over again. I pet her while she was wedged between some cement blocks and instead of poofing up and making that typical angry broody noise she did a squat. My friend wants to give her some 4-day old chicks that she has that we hatched out in my incubator. I told her it likely wouldn't work as she hasn't been sitting on eggs.

I felt her abdomen while she was wedged between a couple raised garden beds to see if she was egg bound, but it didn't feel like she had anything stuck in the pipe and her behavior didn't exactly strike me as if she were sick. I'm assuming since she's bred for egg laying, if she's feeling broody she may not know how to follow through with typical broody behavior. Does that make sense? Also, according to my friend she hasn't laid an egg in the last couple of days, which is unusual for her. Hence, my thoughts about egg
binding - of course, it also goes along with broodiness. Anywho, any thoughts?

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

She looks pretty pancaked in that picture!

Some of my hens will "play house". They'll act like they're going to sit, then they're just don't. Or they end up helping another broody who has chicks.

From what I can see of her in the picture, she looks to be in great shape. At least her plumage looks beautiful. If shes not acting ill and no one is picking on her or anything like that, I'd just let her deal with whatever she's got going on. Broodies really can change the whole dynamic of the coop. Sometimes its good, sometimes its bad and sometimes it's just plain weird.

In short, chickens are strange. If they don't seem ill and nothing seems wrong, I chalk it up to "normal" chicken behavior, whatever that is

Good luck!


P.s, I don't recommend giving her any chicks to rear. It could end up terribly bad.