Vicious Broody

[wbruder17]

I've had a broody silkie sitting on a variety of nests. I'm very guilty to admit that she's been jostled around quite a bit due to infertile eggs, another silkie being broody then deciding not to be, switching of the eggs, not pooing, not eating etc. I know its almost completely my fault, but she's very vicious right now, violently attacking my hand anytime I give food. I'm going to try to just leave her completely alone for a few days, only giving her food, but I'm wondering if I've caused permanent damage to her personality. I fell terrible, but my obsessiveness with hatching eggs for the first time got the best of me. Does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom?

 

[gritsar]

I have another silkie go broody on me today; that makes 2 silkies and a SF all broody.

The one silkie is very vicious. I've developed a system with the first broody (the SF) that seems to be working well. After a few days, when I know they are going to "stick", I move them to a crate with a door on it, so they aren't disturbed by the other birds. I put food and water right in front of them. However, even though they have that food and water, I still remove them from the nest once a day to get them out, let them stretch their legs, scratch around a bit and poop that wonderful smelly broody poop.

I've observed that my broody instinctively knows how long she can afford to stay off the nest, without doing damage to her eggs from the cold. On cold days, she only stays out about 5 minutes; warmer days she stays out longer. Once she goes back in on her own, I lock her back up. There's plenty of room in the crate in case she needs to poo at other times, but so far she hasn't. They won't want to soil their nest.

If you don't have fertile eggs for her or don't want any to hatch right now, I would definitely break her. Broodiness is very hard on their bodies. There's lots of threads here on BYC about breaking them.

If you want her to hatch then I would make the effort to give her a quiet place to brood, only bothering her once a day for her daily constitutional.

Just MHO.

 

[wbruder17]

Thanks Gritsar. She is currently in the basement with her clutch in a large "cage". I'm the one that bothers her, and I'm trying very hard just to leave her alone. I'm just new at it and compulsively checking on her. I guess I just need to let her do her thing and know that she can take care of her needs, its just SO HARD. I want to do things for her, but I need to just LET HER ALONE!