A heavy heart

[Chickaboo]

I wrote about Daphne being broody, a couple of weeks ago, and I got lots of advice from you all - thank you. However, it is just getting ridiculous now. She is into her 6th week of being a broody! I shut her out of the eglu each morning untill bedtime, where she spends the whole day in the run whining at the eglu door, and looking through the holes. Over a week ago she decided she would make a tempory nest in the run, by scooping up the wood chippings and lining it with a few feathers. When she is let out, she tries to get into the eglu from the outside! When I clean out the poo tray and nest, she goes crazy, sqawking pacing etc! My main worry is she is now very thin. She will eat her treats if I hand feed her, but I suspect she is not eating anything else. What should I do? I'm sorry but I can't bear to dunk her in cold water, and if I make broody box, I think Phoebe her friend will get upset and lonely . It would probably be easier just to get her a chick! Please help.

[Olly]

oh dear ... I'm no expert, but I've been reading up on the 'broody' sections on here in preparation for when it happens. Couldn't you make a broody cage within the run, or next to it, so that Phoebe isn't lonely? she can't be getting much company anyway if Daphne is like this - wouldn't a few days (hopefully) sorting her out be better than this going on for weeks?

 

Sorry I can't be much help as I haven't been through this, it does sound as if it's going on for a long time though.

[Christian]

Sorry to hear about Daphne!

 

The water has to be cold, but not freezing. Just enough to bring her body temp. down. It really is the kindest thing to do as you said she is now thin.

 

Try giving her pellets mixed with water as a porridge with tuna/mealworms mixed in. maybe some cracked corn/wheat to help her gain weight?

 

I dunked Babs in a tub trug of cold water and she was fine with it. Recently gave her a bath too, as she had really mucky knickers due to moulting. She seemed to enjoy it!

[Jools]

This is totally off the wall and I have no idea if it will work or not, but .....

 

When the eggs under a broody hen hatch, she stays on the nest for a day or so with them, but then something triggers her to get off the nest and become a mother hen. I imagine it's a combination of the movement of restless chicks but it must also have a lot to do with their cheeping.

 

What about trying to find some realistic chick cheeping sounds to play to her over and over to see if it triggers the next stage of broodiness??

 

Told you it was off the wall, but if you try it, could you let us know if it works!!

[Gallina]

I think a Cube might help them snap out of it. Go on, you know you would like one.

 

My Cochin used to lie about in the Eglu a lot, but she never goes to bed during the day now that bed is upstairs.

 

There is an almost brand-new pink Cube for sale secondhand at £500 in Lincoln at the moment. I don't know where you live, of course.

[chocolatefudge]

I've dunked my broody Pepperpot in the past the garden trugs are ideal. Although it didn't work she didn't seem to mind too much, so I wouldn't worry too much about trying it, you never now it might work. She's just hatched some chicks herself and it did snap her out of it, but I think maybe that's a little extreme!! I know how you feel about broodies though, Pepperpot stuck it our for 6 weeks at one stage although she did eat well. I give my girls cod liver oil from the pet shop soaked onto her pellets just to give her an extra boost, and hen tonic in their water as well, especially when they moult or are broody. I will get round to posting pictures of chicks eventually, it's mad here at the moment everything is happening all at once!!

[bronze]

If you put a chick under her she wouldnt be great company anyway. Personally if it was me I would try the broody cage in the run idea and if that failed dunk her. Cruel to be kind and all that

[bellekatz]

My pepperpot had been broody for three weeks until Saturday. I put a bag of ice in the nest box under her ( under some straw) and she finally snapped out of it - wish i had persevered with the ice at the beginning as it really did make a difference to me ( she obviously thought that if the eggs were that cold there is no way they would hatch!!) = its a bit kinder than dunking ( I really didnt want to have to do that) but just as cold!

[Chickaboo]

Thanks for all your advice, over the weekend I placed a brick in the nest, which she just sat on! Next night I put a big box over the nest - but she just nested in the doorway of the eglu instead!! She now appears to have a cold, and is sneezing all over me (I think just to make me feel bad for making her sleep on a brick!) So I don't really feel I can dunk her in cold water. I am giving her lots of her favourite marmite porridge, with added honey. I did actually think about buying a toy fluffy chick, to see if that would sort her out - I don't think its such a stupid idea! I think the next step will have to be a broody box, but I think she'll just nest in that too, she's pretty relentless.

[Lindy]

Hello again,

 

I copied this for you when you first posted about this problem but just in case you didn't see it, here it is again. I really think it would be worth trying. I understand your concerns about Phoebe being unsettled while Daphne's in the cage but when a hen is as broody as Daphne is perhaps she's not much company anyway! Like you. we became increasingly worried about our broody chicken's thinness - we kept trying to persuade ourselves that she wouldn't come to any harm, but it was getting hard to believe. Here's what we did ...

 

Our Speckled Star - Stella - went broody a while ago. I read all the useful information in the broody section of Chicken Clinic on this forum and decided to let her sit it out. We did shut her out of the Eglu every day once Blanche had laid, but Stella's solution to this was simply to sit down on the bark/Hemcore layer and pretend that was her nest.

 

Basically, we found that just keeping her away from the nesting box wasn't enough to stop the broodiness but we hoped that once the normal incubation period of 3 weeks was over she would just snap out of it. Not a bit of it! The 4 week mark came and went with no sign of a change. All this time we'd been doing the things you're supposed to do during the broody phase, i.e. forcibly (and boy, do I mean that!) removing Stella from the run several times a day to get her to eat, drink and walk about a bit. But I was worried that this period of relatively low dietary/fluid intake and little exercise was going on beyond the normal 3 weeks that chickens are physiologically programmed to cope with and that it couldn't be healthy for her. So...

 

I emailed the very helpful breeder from whom we'd got the chickens and she advised us to put Stella into a broody cage right away. I'd read about this on the forum but wasn't sure of how to get one and certainly didn't feel competent to make one! The breeder suggested using a dog or cat carrying cage (the type with a wire/mesh floor) but what we ended up using was a bird cage with a plastic lower half and a wire upper half. We turned it upside down and set it on a couple of bricks so that the air and breezes could circulate around Stella's nether regions through the wire and the plastic "lid" acted to protect her from above from rain and sun.

 

It wasn't a pretty sight, I admit, and Stella was not chuffed. But she stopped being broody within 2 days and started laying again a week later. Of course, it's possible that she was ready to stop being broody anyway, I've no way of knowing.

 

I hope I don't sound like a brute, but if she or Blanche showed signs of broodiness again I'd definitely use the cage right away rather than waiting to see what happens.

[lindsayp]

My hen Scribble has been broody for this past week and I wasn't looking forward to dunking her in cold water (seemed far too mean!). After reading bellekatz's advice about ice in the nest box I tried this out yesterday and it seems to have done the trick. Scribble's been out all day and even laid a lovely egg! Thanks bellekatz

[xScrunchee]

Bobbie, one of my Pepperpots has now gone broody!

 

She went in the nest box yesterday at about 3.30 and stayed in there.

She didn't come out this morning for food and makes a heck of a noise if I open the eggport.

So, at 8 o'clock this morning (so that the neighbours had a chance to get up) I decided to turf her out.

She was not impressed but I have put an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel in the nest.

The other girls have both laid but Bobbie keeps going back in and sitting on the ice pack!! (Hope she doesn't get piles! )

I will keep replacing the ice pack but if she hasn't given up by tomorrow afternoon I'm afraid that I will dunk her!

I'm going with the 'cruel to be kind' approach.

 

What with having to fit a bumper bit to Bobbie, doing crop massage on Ria when her crop was hard and swollen and now a broody Bobbie it's been a very 'hands on' start to chicken keeping

 

I love my girls though so I'm not complaining

[chocolatefudge]

Bumper bits what are they.

[xScrunchee]

Bumper bits are sort of like a muzzle for hens.

They are used when hens decide to start pulling feathers.

Two of my hens had large bald patches because Bobbie was pulling their feathers out to the point where she was drawing blood.

 

Here is a picture of Bobbie wearing her bumper bit.........

 

It does not stop the hen from eating, drinking, preening or any other hen activities but it does stop them being able to put the tips of their beak together so that they can pull out feathers.

[xScrunchee]

I forgot to say that they may look a bit odd but they don't cause the hen any harm at all. They show off for about an hour after it's fitted but after that they seem to forget that they are wearing it. It clips into the nostrils and has a bar going across which goes into the hens beak-like a horses bit-hense the name.

 

People also use them if their hens start pecking and/or eating eggs.

 

I hope I explained that all ok

[chocolatefudge]

Gosh, that interesting! So far (touch wood) I havn't needed anything like them but that is coming from the women that bought another Eglu because my old hen didn't get on with my new ones. I didn't like them fighting (I'm such a woos).