Where should my broody girl sleep?

[sooju]

My one year old Australorp has gone broody. For the last two days I've kept her in a sectioned off corner of the run (dirt floor) but let her back into the hen house at night. In the morning she's back in the nesting box all warm and dreamy eyed and we're back to square one. Should I make her sleep in the run? Isn't she going to hate sleeping on the ground?? This is my first experience with broodiness.

 

[gritsar]

Are you trying to break her of her broodiness?

I don't know your set-up but generally speaking a run is a bad choice of a place for a chicken to sleep. Too easy for a determined predator to get to them.

 

[Chicken.Lytle]

One of my hens has gone broody twice. The first time I broke it using a series of techniques. Here is the last entry in that saga. The second time around I gave her eggs to hatch and a special place to hatch them. This second saga started badly but turned out much better than expected .

 

[sooju]

Yes, I'm trying to break her of it. I don't have a rooster (just seven hens). I'd consider getting a couple fertilized eggs, except I'm currently fighting with the town about whether or not I can keep my chickens so it's not a good time to be adding to the flock.

 

[gritsar]

Okay, so if you want to break her there are several good threads on the subject. Here's a few to get you started. You can find more by using the BYC search feature, keywords "breaking broody".

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=490851

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=20384

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=64680