[Emma S]

Can anyone offer me advice on this rather odd chicken behaviour? I recently had a silkie cross hen go broody, and she refused resolutely to be disuaded. After a few days I did what I always do, which is to shut her in a little run outside the hen house - still within the big run so she's with the others but on her own and without a house to get cosy in. The idea is to cool her down of course.

She was absolutely frantic for 2 days and I felt like a monster, but eventually she calmed down and I let her out. She flew straight up onto the top of the 6' high trellis which is the fence of the run (she's quite a good flier and likes trees but doesn't usually stay up there) and she categoricaly refuses to come down.

She's not trying to get away - she's more than capable of flying down on the other side and into the garden and away, and she has popped down occasionally for a snack and comes into the hen house at night, but she spends all day there, just wandering up and down like a very large cockatoo!

Have I traumatised her by shutting her in do you think? Can anyone suggest what I can do to help her get over her little problem? She can't live up there for ever, and she used to be very close with our cockerel - they were quite an item before she went broody.

Please help, I don't want an unhappy girly. :o(

Emma

[ehs284]

Don't know about trauma, but she's making her views felt very successfully. She'll get fed up after a while, but if it worries you (that's her intention of course) then when she goes to bed get some newspaper, screw into balls and put into top of trellis so that she can't see the safe place to land.

[Emma S]

Thanks, it's worth a try. My main worry is that she's not eating much and that she's separating herself from the group, and I don't know if that will cause problems.

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[joyfull]

last year when I delivered some of my babies down to poppie in bedfordshire I had to go into the shed early one morning to get them whilst they was all sleepy (they free range and catching them otherwise is nigh on impossible). Anyway after this claudette one of their sisters decided that there was no way she was going to be caught and taken away. So she decided after that to sleep in one of the apple trees (higher up so I couldn't reach). When this lost it's leaves she then moved into the laurels. this year she started to lay and ventured into the coups to lay and then became broody. She was then caught (not hard when they are sat tight on eggs) and transfered into a broody coup. Eggs have hatched and she is now the proud mum of 5. I don't know if she will go back to tree dwelling but she obviously got enough food to keep her going and I bet yours will too 

[Emma S]

Thanks for that. Well, it's been 6 days now and she's still up there. She spent the day in the garden today (ie wrong side of the fence...) and went wild when I scooped her up and popped her back in with the others for some corn. I think she's decided she doesn't want to live with the chickens any more, thank you very much, she's above that sort of thing. So she's gone back to the top of the trellis with the odd foray into my herbaceous border.

So yes, she's getting plenty to eat.