Sooo much pooping

[Darren Beaumont]

One of my hens, a Rhode Red Hybrid has spent the last five hours in the nest box.

She is not that old and has been laying for only a few weeks now.

Could she have gone broody already?

I will give her a good check over when I get home tonight to see if there is anything else.

Any ideas?

 

Darren

Edited September 10, 2010 by Guest

[Darren Beaumont]

Right, she is deffo broody. Spread herself over the eggs, really vicious when I attempted to move her.

She has also pulled feathers off herself to make a nice nest.

Problem now is I am not here during the day for the next week and my wife will not handle them so broody cage is out of the question.

To get her out of the nest box and get her temperature down I used the rather harsh method of giving her a good soaking with the hose pipe!

Do hens break out of being broody with one soaking? I don't know what else to do. I really need a solution tonight!

[thelurch]

I've got the same problem with our top hen, only had them laying for 10 days.

Today she laid hers which I took from under her and made her move out of the cube.

When I returned she was back in the nestbox and sitting on two eggs from other hens! She wasn't happy when I moved the eggs and her again, and squawked for a good 10 minutes after.

We are both at work most days so cannot regularly check that she's doing it.

 

I would appreciate some advice as well with this.

[chicken bark]

You'd need to do it every few hours and IMO the weather is not warm enough for the dunking method now.

 

When using a broody cage she should be in it 24 hours a day for 3 days. So as long as she had food and water in there your wife would not need to go near her. The broody cage can then be put in a covered bit of the run so she is safe or else put her in the garage/shed each night.

[chuckmum6]

My Pekin, Princess Layer (not!!!) is broody yet again, fourth time in as many months. She is in the spare ark with only roosting bars to sit on in the nestbox - I shall leave her in there for the weekend hopefully she will have given in. I agree that the dunking approach is a bit of a risk as the weather becomes cooler and damper.

[Sue]

If you leave quantities of eggs in the nesting boxes it will tend to encourage broodiness as the birds think there are sufficient eggs to make a clutch, so a roll away nest box may help with this, but a birds desire to brood is triggered by her breeding and the genes contained in the strain she comes from.

 

Put her in a pen (dog cages are ideal) with just shavings and feed and water, if possible where the other birds can still see her. There is generally no quick fix . People may tell you to dip them in water or put them in drafty wire cages to cool them down. Actually broody hens are already 1-2 degrees cooler than a normal bird - though she may feel warmer when you pick her up as she has removed her breast feathers to aid incubation.

 

It will generally take around 3-6 days before she snaps out of her broodiness, and may be 2 weeks before she starts laying again. In my experience she will often just lay enough for another good clutch and then sit again. But in any case she will need some TLC and plenty of fresh greens to start her laying cycle once more.

 

Putting a broody in with a strange cockerel especially if they are alone together will often bring her into lay, but once again she will probably just lay enough for a good clutch and then sit

 

All the best

Sue

Dark Brown Eggs