Yup. It has happened. We have a chicken that wants to be a mom in a really bad way.
How do I know this? My first clue was when I noticed that she was in a nesting box while all the other chickens were roaming around. Yes, there were multiple eggs (from multiple chickens) under her. I took those eggs.
My second clue was when I noticed that she was in a nesting box while all the other chickens were roaming around. She had an egg under her and I took it from her.
My third clue was when I noticed that she was in a nesting box while all the other chickens were roaming around. She had a fake egg under her. I let her keep it.
My fourth clue was when I noticed that she was in a nesting box while all the other chickens were……that was a light bulb moment for me.
I would like to say that all of the above clues happened four days in a row. However, it has taken me a couple of weeks to realize what is going on. In my defense when I enter the coop in the morning all of my focus is on the rooster. Where is he? Is he sneaking up on me? Is he going to attack me? As well as getting back out of the coop without that speedy demon guy following me to……you guessed it, attack me some more.
I think he is eyeballing me in this picture.
I have read up on this behavior with chickens. When a chicken acts like this she is called broody. This is a natural instinct and is triggered by the longer daylight hours.
When a hen lays an egg it is either fertilized or not (depending on if you have a rooster and he “did his thing” at the right time of the egg development). We eat both the same. If it is fertilized and the hen sets on the egg then the change happens. Her body temperature will raise the temperature of the egg. Once that temperature reaches 85 degrees (and stays warm) then the change in the egg begins. Unless you are looking closely you won’t see any big changes until day three or four. After about 21 days the chicks will hatch and she will have her babies. During all this time her pituitary gland releases a hormone that causes her to stop laying eggs.
At this point of our homesteading adventure we don’t want to raise our own chicks. We just want to eat the eggs. When we need more chickens we will buy more chicks. Now you can see why I don’t want a broody chicken.
Here she is. The first picture in the post is of her heading back to the coop.
To break her of this broodiness I have done two things. First I removed all of the fake eggs. The hens are consistent in where they lay so hopefully removing those eggs won’t matter to them. The second thing I did was to lock her outside, away from the nesting boxes.
I made sure she had water and food.
Since I’m not sure how long she has been in “want to be a mom” mode I don’t know how long it will take to break her of it. The longer she has been broody the longer it will be until she lays eggs again.
Some hens are just broody. No matter how hard you want to break her of it you never will. In that case she may have to become Sunday dinner. 🙁
I’ll keep you updated on how it goes,
Karen
Hi Karen.
She should turn back to her normal self in two-to-three days. And she’ll start laying eggs shortly after. Some breeds are broodier than others. Reds are moderately broody from my experience.
We don’t breed chickens either. It doesn’t seem economical to keep a rooster. And roosters are just aggressive. I have one chicken with bold spot on her back from all that plucking that roosters do. When my roosters started attacking me, they became Sunday dinners.
Good luck with your brooder.
Kimberly
Ohmygoodness….I learned so much today Karen. I had absolutely no idea what goes on behind the scenes for my poached egg. Now I’m clued in! (I think I thought broody meant moody, come to think of it…..that may be part of it too!)
I’m learning a lot as well. If it weren’t for the fact that they stop laying I wouldn’t care if they wanted to sit around all day. However, I want them to be earning their feed.
I just had to pull another out of a nesting box twice so far today. I feel really bad doing it but if I don’t it will get worse.
Take care,
Karen
I have never been successful in breaking a broody hen so far, so I hope your solution works. The one trick I haven’t tried yet is putting ice in a couple of those plastic easter eggs and giving her those. Last year I had 2 broodies and just gave them each three eggs to hatch, which gave us two cockerel dinners later on. This year I’m waiting for somebody to go broody so I can introduce replacement chicks! Of course when you want them to … they don’t, LOL
I did not know that raising chickens was so complicated. You are certainly expanding your knowledge of animal behavior!! You’ll do great on Jeopardy if becomes a category.
My brain is so fried with overload. I’m glad I have Michael and we can share the necessary learning.
How is your Trini doing?
I don’t know when you will get up to the time share again but when you do try to plan on visiting us. It isn’t too far out of the way.
[…] have posted before about our broody chickens. I was successful for a while but it seemed like there was always a new chicken wanting to be a […]