Stubborn broody- blah!!

[RoosterCogburn7]

Trust your instincts. It sounds like this broody may have the hormones, but lacks the brain cells to nurture her chicks. It happens sometimes with novice broodies.

You would do well to tell her she's fired, and brood these chicks yourself.

That is always my preference. I have found that when a broody gets out to eat or drink, the others, think, 'Well, this is a wonderful place to dump eggs,' and the eggs pile up and ultimately go bad. I prefer to take them and hatch them myself. We play surrogate mama, and teach them how to eat and drink, and the rest after that is easy.

 

[Hillaire]

I candle eggs to make sure that no eggs are freshly laid in the broody nest... luckily my broodys are pretty gentle and don't mind me reaching underneath to check the eggs

 

[KimPahl]

I have 2 stubborn broodies too! Not sure what to do. Both sat on eggs and none hatched. Ok fine, I don't want chicks this year but didn't want to fight w/ them so gave them eggs. So, now that no chicks hatched, I removed all eggs and both are still sitting on nothing! I can give them more fertile eggs, but I don't think that's healthy is it? They'd be going another 3 weeks. No cage to put them in. Was going to put cold packs under them and remove all bedding from nests, only thing is, they'll just move to another box. Ugh.