Worried about broody hen

[FluffTheDuck]

Although I (no offense to anybody,) did give those to a Chinese lady and she was so happy!

 

[bobbi-j]

If you let her sit to long she might die. but thats only after day 21. If she does not lay eggs for a month she could die.

No. As others have said, this is false.

? Occasionally a setting hen will die, but generally it is from a mite infestation that builds up as they are brooding. Not laying eggs for a month will have no impact on a hen.

This.

In my experience, I have never had a broody die on the nest. Not saying it couldn't happen, but I have never seen it. I leave my broodies alone - I have food and water where they have to get off the nest to eat and drink. I don't want to encourage them to stay on the nest and poop in it. Unless you are watching your broody 24/7 and seeing that she's not getting off the nest, she most likely is. They tend to want to be secretive in getting off the nest and going back to it. I have watched broodies sneak around, taking the "scenic route" back to their nests after getting off for their daily constitutional. If they know I'm watching them, they never go directly back to the nest. I have come to the realization that my chickens know more about being chickens than I do. If they couldn't take care of themselves, they'd be extinct by now.

 

[FluffTheDuck]

Totally agree with @bobbi-j! Never had had a broody hen die.

 

[besorto]

Only time I've ever had a broody die is when a raccoon got into the coop! The raccoon wasn't gloating for very long after. My dog tore the thing up.

 

[FluffTheDuck]

Only time I've ever had a broody die is when a raccoon got into the coop!

 

[Allymcc1999]

Thank you all for your responses. We candled the eggs and it turned out that they were not fertile. We've also blocked off her nest and taken her outside to try to get her to stop being broody.

 

[aart]

Thank you all for your responses. We candled the eggs and it turned out that they were not fertile. We've also blocked off her nest and taken her outside to try to get her to stop being broody.

If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, best to break her broodiness promptly.

My experience goes about like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop or run with feed and water.

I used to let them out a couple times a day, but now just once a day in the evening(you don't have to) and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two. Or take her out of crate daily very near roosting time(30-60 mins) if she goes to roost great, if she goes to nest put her back in crate.

Chunk of 2x4 for a 'roost' was added to crate floor after pic was taken.

 

[cmom]

I gave a broody 8 eggs to incubate, several years ago now. She would get off the nest usually at least once a day and another bird would get in and lay an egg. One day I decided to take her off of the nest and there were 18 eggs under her. I had no idea. I took them and put them in the incubator. Whenever I would check she was on the nest. I band my birds.

 

[Turkey Girl]

Only time I've ever had a broody die is when a raccoon got into the coop! The raccoon wasn't gloating for very long after. My dog tore the thing up.

This happened to one of my hens and her first chick.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Well if a hen sits on eggs for so long and doesn't lay she can get the eggs stuck inside her. But this hen should be fine as long as she doesn't sit for to long. Good luck!

I think you're confusing this with something else. When you provide false lighting in winter, chickens start laying their eggs more often. If the light suddenly goes out, they're not being stimulated to lay as many eggs, so the ones that they do have get larger and larger until they're very difficult to lay. (Or so I've heard--the statement had no sources.) Finally, these large eggs move into position and get a shell put over them. Then the hen tries to lay them, and sometimes, they're too large and she prolapses or is eggbound.

Broody hens flat out stop producing eggs. There are no eggs inside them. They're absorbing everything and using it to stay alive and healthy while brooding. EDT: This does not only happen for twenty-one days. It happens for as long as they have broody hormones, which are the things that make them set. As long as a hen is setting, she's producing no eggs.

i personally have had a chicken set for nearly sixty days. It was a series of emergencies, but she was an exemplary example of a setter, and brooded three different sets of eggs for me before finally leaving the nest with a set of fluffies. She was perfectly fine. Even stayed mostly at weight.