When do hens most often go broody?

[rosemarythyme]

Hens most often go broody 2 days after you put the broody breaker back in the garage.

Hens most often go broody during a heatwave to force you out of your air conditioned house to check if they need more food that they're going to ignore.

Hens most often go broody when your human brooded chicks are already 3 weeks old and want nothing to do with the puffy weirdo making bomb sounds.

Hens most often go broody when you already have 2 in jail, thereby forcing you to go pull out yet another pen for a makeshift jail and making you wish you'd grabbed that free dog crate at the roadside that you thought you couldn't possibly need.

Hens most often go broody when they haven't laid in over a year but somehow still have enough maternal hormones in their system to trigger the desire to brood, to the point where they need to be broken 3x (so far) in a single summer.

(Obviously I'm being cheeky here, but I couldn't help but rant as I just pulled the broody breaker out of the garage again after only 48 hours. All the others are also true, because hens most often go broody to keep us on our toes!)

 

[FrostRanger]

Our whole summer is a heatwave so you're spot on about that. Basil went broody a few weeks ago and of course I had to go out there to make sure she still had food and water. of course she did and it was indeed untouched as she was too busy trying to mother infertile eggs and ceramic eggs to focus on a silly thing like eating. I just keep a dog crate in the run, not because they need it regularly, I put it in when I was integrating them when they were chicks and it was such a pain to get in I left it in there. Besides, they like perching on it

 

[rosemarythyme]

Our whole summer is a heatwave so you're spot on about that. Basil went broody a few weeks ago and of course I had to go out there to make sure she still had food and water. of course she did and it was indeed untouched as she was too busy trying to mother infertile eggs and ceramic eggs to focus on a silly thing like eating. I just keep a dog crate in the run, not because they need it regularly, I put it in when I was integrating them when they were chicks and it was such a pain to get in I left it in there. Besides, they like perching on it

I should count my blessings this time - Flair (current jailbird) chose last night to start sitting overnight, as temperatures are slated to drop a bit back into normal range. Yay.

Every time I tell myself to simply leave the crate in the run it just sits there, unused, for weeks. The moment I take it away someone starts looking a little puffy...

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

They go broody when....

They know you put their eggs in the fridge (or on the dog's dinner) so they can cackle at the fact that now you cannot hatch their eggs as they won't be laying again.

 

[thecatumbrella]

I saw someone suspend their broody breakers from the high ceiling in their run. Even had a pulley system to raise and lower. It was like something out of a medieval dungeon, but totally brilliant!

 

[Shadrach]

When you've casually watched where a hen is laying but not quite got a fixed location and that night it's pouring with rain and they don't return to the coop and you can't find them.

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

I saw someone suspend their broody breakers from the high ceiling in their run. Even had a pulley system to raise and lower. It was like something out of a medieval dungeon, but totally brilliant!

Is it the empty cage being stored?
Or are they just waiting for you to walk under...

 

[GuineaMania]

Lol these are so true! In the early spring I wanted to hatch chicks but didn't have any broodies, and in the summer with 100+ temps of course I have many go broody!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Hens most often go broody 2 days after you put the broody breaker back in the garage.

Hens most often go broody during a heatwave to force you out of your air conditioned house to check if they need more food that they're going to ignore.

Hens most often go broody when your human brooded chicks are already 3 weeks old and want nothing to do with the puffy weirdo making bomb sounds.

Hens most often go broody when you already have 2 in jail, thereby forcing you to go pull out yet another pen for a makeshift jail and making you wish you'd grabbed that free dog crate at the roadside that you thought you couldn't possibly need.

Hens most often go broody when they haven't laid in over a year but somehow still have enough maternal hormones in their system to trigger the desire to brood, it to the point where they need to be broken 3x (so far) in a single summer.

(Obviously I'm being cheeky here, but I couldn't help but rant as I just pulled the broody breaker out of the garage again after only 48 hours. All the others are also true, because hens most often go broody to keep us on our toes!)

Pullets go broody less than a week before new, younger pullets arrive, throwing all the schedule for coop and run adaptation out the window.

 

[Buckeye Amy]

Ha! These are so funny and so true! I've got 2 broodies at the moment, one an olive egger named Olga and Paloma, who is tiny, a terrible layer but so darn cute I don't care! We have nicknamed her the "Murder Pancake". Careful, she'll rip your arm off and beat you with it!