She only seemed to miss the chicks for a few hours then she was back to her old self. When the chicks moved on Mrs Broody was real happy to get back with her sisters. After running around all day clucking at the chicks she would gather them up and go to bed at 6:30 every nite!! By then we had turned the nest over to form a kind of tent and that’s where she would make them go with her.
#TIME OUT CHICKEN HOW TO#
She let the chicks hitch a ride on her back and hide in her feathers and taught them how to scratch and eat bugs. I decided to let her mother the chicks for 2weeks then give these babies back to the family who “loaned” us the eggs. They could see each other but the chicks were safe. I moved the little family to their own pen and a new nest away from my other 3 girls. Imagine my surprise!!! By 8:00 pm that nite we had 4 beautiful babies. Were the eggs really fertile?would Mrs Broody live through it? If we didn’t move her off the nest to eat and drink twice a day she would not leave these eggs!!!!! On day 19, I opened the nest area to collect eggs and up popped a baby chick. Wasn’t sure if our experiment would work for many reasons. So I collected 6 eggs and gave Mrs Broody a reason to set and started counting to 21. Couldn’t get her to quit, ugh! A friend has fertile eggs but doesn’t allow the hens to set. June comes and Mrs Broody is back !!! same Favarolle hen. Placed her in a section of the pen without nests. To follow along with more of our homesteading adventures (and home and garden info), visit my blog LL Farm. After they ate their layer pellets and zucchini rinds they all proceeded to take dust baths under the coop. Broody and the rest of the flock clucked, catching up on chicken talk. I also gave them fresh zucchini peelings, hoping this yummy treat would keep her occupied for a while and away from the coop.Īs you can see in the picture above, as she gathered with the rest of the flock, she seemed to ‘shake it off’. I put her back in the chicken yard at afternoon feeding time. I collected the eggs for the day first, so she wouldn’t see the eggs and be tempted to brood again. They each reverted back to laying one egg per day while she was gone.Īfter 3 1/2 days, I returned Ms. Broody was away, the stress seemed to lift off the rest of the flock. She pecked at that food with such vigor, like there was no tomorrow! She stayed in time out for three days to work through her problems. This was our lovingly way to allow air to circulate all around her. Being uncomfortable would hopefully remove the desire to brood. The purpose of this time out was to make her uncomfortable without harming her. We put her in a metal dog kennel (turned upside down so the wires were closer together, making it easier for her to grasp). There she would be away from the rest of the flock, yet safe from predators. She needed to be uncomfortable for a few days (no bedding or nesting areas because she wasn’t laying eggs at this time), to forget about the desire to nest. We physically moved her a couple more times, before we realized it wasn’t going to work with this one. OK, this was becoming dangerous to health now. She wasn’t taking dust baths, which is a favorite activity for her to do. Rarely did she go outside the coop to socialize with the other chickens. she would even stay in that spot at bed time, instead of roosting up high with the other chickens. She wouldn’t hear of it though.Īfter we moved her and gathered the eggs, she quickly went back to her moody broody ways. Yes, she was determined, but it wasn’t going to work…there is no rooster! She could lay on those eggs for a year, and nothing would hatch…they weren’t fertile. We had to physically move her! Guess what we found? Seven eggs! She had managed to move them from the nesting box, across the coop and into the corner. In her mind,she was protecting her nest of eggs from what she perceived as a threat. Brood was moody! In reality she was brooding – a natural instinct to hatch eggs. She puffed her feathers out, cackled a weird sound, and gave me a mean look. I tried to move her, but she showed me an attitude that I had not seen before. There she was all sprawled out…away from the nesting boxes. It was a fairly hot day, so I checked inside the coop to make sure all was well. Inspecting things one day, I noticed one chicken missing from the flock in the chicken yard. It just didn’t seem right…what was going on…why weren’t they laying?
But this time…no eggs in the nesting box for two days! The ladies ALWAYS lay their eggs in the same nesting box. No big deal…we moved the chicken out of the nesting box a few times, collected the eggs and all was good. Let me start by saying that we have had a little broodiness before.
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