[Bilbo67]

Hi all,
Just wondering if one my young lady has gone broody? She will not leave the nest box .Also I have caught her sitting on her sister in the same nest box :ohmy:Also I am having to kick her out of the coop to eat. If she is broody how long will this last,If she isn,t could anyone tell me what it is and what i can do to help her as im getting worried with her not eating thanks in advance.

[jinty1911]

Do she fluff up her feathers and purr at you when you go near her? Try putting your hand in a fist shape under her and if she settles on it she is broody.  It will probably last about 3 weeks and then 3 weeks before they lay again.  There are various ideas about how to stop broodiness (cages and buckets of cold water) but I have decided to go with the flow.  :happy:

[Bilbo67]

thankyou for the information ::)I will go with the flow as i  dont like the sound of cages or cold water,  yes she does purr when you go near her and she settled on my fist nicely.

[Oliveview]

We had a hen go broody last summer and the summer before.  Last year I tried putting her in a seperate bit with eggs to sit on and a nesting box-  she could still see the other hens.  A couple of hours later I went to check and she was back in the other nesting area    How she got over the fence I do not know, well obviously she flew over it    In the end we gave up on her sitting on eggs, the 3 eggs she was sitting on all got broken as she would go and sit in other nesting boxes, she eventually  gave up herself.
Pamela

[jinty1911]

Mine lay for 3 weeks, go broody for 3 weeks and them recover for 3 weeks.  They seemed to alternate it perfectly and we always got 1 egg a day but now 2 are broody and 1 is recovering so will just have to wait and see what happens next.  :blink:

[Casey76]

Being broody is a hormonal change.  You *can* break broodyness within a few (3-4) days by putting the hen in a wire bottomed cage (like a travelling dog crate) and put it in a couple of breeze blocks.

The idea is that while the wire bottom is not so comfortable to sit on, the passage of cool air under her body will cool her underside off.  (when a hen becomes broody, as part of the hormonal change, her underside will become very warm in order to incubate the eggs).  It takes a few days, because you can't just switch hormones off like a light switch, but cooling her underside off will help to hasten the moves of hormone back to "normal" state rather than broody.


Putting her in a cage (with whole wheat and water!!!) is not cruel, and will not harm her.  Being broody though, can be detrimental to here health as she will just sit not eating or drinking.  Broody hens can lose a *lot* of weight if they are just allowed to sit.

[joyfull]

here is my list on ways to break a broody 

You cant stop them going broody but there are several ways to deal with it.
1) let them have fertile eggs,
2) keep removing the eggs so she is sitting on nothing - can take weeks,
3) keep removing her from the nest box - again can take weeks,
4) put her in a cage with food and water - can take between 1 and 7 days,
5) dunk her bum in a bucket of cold water - this lowers her body temperature - not tried this method but she may need several dunkings (just make sure she dries off though).
So far I have tried methods 1 and 4 - much prefer method 1 though