Broody Hens Again!
When a chicken is sitting on eggs to incubate them, it is called brooding. The term "broody" is the hen's state of readiness to incubate eggs - meaning they want to sit on the eggs instead of laying them. Brooding is the action of being broody and sitting on the egg.
I put three hens in the Broody Bin this week. That’s the name for our hoop house when I use it to separate my girls.
THE HOOP HOUSE (aka broody bin)
This hoop house has been brilliant. There is a chicken size opening between the two chicken runs. So anytime that we need to isolate the chickens. We just close the door and they have their own separate coop. I highly recommend this if you have any more than a handful of chickens.
OTHER USES!
We also use it when we have new chicks, if a chicken is getting picked on or is injured or is showing signs of being sick and I also use it to see if my older chickens are still producing. No freeloaders over here. (I jest… I have never culled a chicken because she’s not laying, but I do like to know so that I can estimate production and keep my numbers right.)
If I have one broody hen, I just let her stay in the nesting box - broodiness is contagious and I know it’s only a matter of time before she is joined by some of her flock . I don’t like to put a hen in isolation alone if I don’t have to, so I will wait for a second chicken to catch it. Additionally, if more than one takes over a nesting and the other girls get very restless because there aren’t enough nesting boxes to go around. I have somewhere between 35 and 40 chickens. (Just a few too many to count,) and we have six nesting boxes. when we have one hen brooding the rest get a little bit restless, but when we have three Brody hens, then you’ll open the nesting boxes and see three chickens in the same box trying to lay eggs on top of each other. It’s pretty funny, but I don’t think it’s very comfortable. Plus, we get a lot of broken eggs that way.
Our process and solution for dealing with brooding chickens:
We wait till two or more chickens become broody.
We isolate them in their own coop for a total of three nights.
They get really mad, but that’s (usually) all it takes.
We release them back into the flock and they are over it.
Even though it’s a very natural thing, we like to nip this one in the bud because they don’t eat or drink much or lay eggs when they are trying to hatch eggs. Left alone, they will naturally get over it in 21 days, but it’s a very uncomfortable 21 days for them and for the birds around them.
Other things that we’ve had tried with moderate success in the past include just pushing them out of the box if you catch it early enough; we’ve tried just closing the nesting boxes at night so they can’t sleep in there and sometimes that works; or putting a pack of ice under their butts because the change in temperature will sometimes snap them out of it. But none of these works consistently and all of them take a lot more effort than just separating them for a few days.
To all of you with brooding hens, good luck!
