Breaking Broody Hens

Hormones!

When hens go broody they have hormonal changes that tell them to stay in their nest and keep their eggs warm.

The broody hens stop laying eggs and sit in a nest to hatch eggs. Doesn't matter if there are eggs or if the eggs are not fertilized the hen will sit for three weeks or more.

These two hens have gone broody and are not happy with my method of breaking their broody spell. The Buff is pacing back and forth in front of the entrance to the coop nest boxes and making cooing clucking noises. The Australorp is strutting around and is all puffed up and making non stop angry clucking noises. Broody hens are scary!

Shutting the broody hens in the pen during the day so they can't get inside to the nest boxes while having feed and water available will hopefully signal their hormones to change. If this doesn't work my next trick will be to place them in a wire bottom cage with feed and water for four or five days. Keeping their tummies cool is supposed to break the broody cycle.

Sometimes I just give up and let them sit. But it's worrisome wondering if the hen is going to be ok and besides that... no eggs for a month is a bummer. I've tried putting a bag of ice cubes under a broody hen but that didn't work. The hen just moved to a new nest. I should have put her in a cage first.

There are lots of sites on the internet about Broody Hens. Here are two... Feathersite and The Poultry Guide. They both have helpful information.

I gave up on outside work today and decided to make some cookies.

PS: I tried to catch up on blogs and comments, but I may have missed some.

I apologize.

Peek at the Past

(May 7, 2009)

(6 eggs today]

~:>

Smiles

Broody Chickens

These hens are not broody.

The broody hens are in the pen. I took the broody hens out of their nest boxes and shut them in the chicken pen where they have feed and water but no access to nest boxes. They are not happy but at least they are eating and drinking and walking around.

The rest of the hens can get to the nest boxes to lay eggs but can't get to the automatic waterer. So, I filled a pan of water for the outside chickens. I had to sprinkle some scratch near the water pan before the chickens would would come check the pan out. They like the water in the pan ok but they really like the water that flowed out and made puddles in the dirt when I was filling the pan. They love that muddy water. Go figure.

I spent some time wandering around finding more branches and bringing them back to the planter beds. I'm going to fill the dug out beds with wood then fill it with water and let the wood soak before I put on a layer of dirt.

Next step is to get the branch cutters and make smaller branches out of big ones and arrange all this wood neatly. I think I will try walking around on the branches first and see if some of them will just break into smaller pieces.

iPhoto is giving me a headache! It is just short of crashing running very, very slow. I was going through old photos and throwing them in the trash and evidently I threw too much away and iPhoto lost its mind. I did a search (wish I had done that before I deleted photos) and found out that you are not supposed to trash more than 100 photos at a time. Arrgh!

I was able to find the photos I took today but the photo of the chickens only showed up in the large size so you can click on it and it will enlarge. Screamer and Pastey are the Light Brahmas drinking with one of the no name Dark Brahmas.

Kristine will be calling soon, Morgan is due back from the groomers, and I have to quit typing this and go cook dinner.

iPhoto update: I finally got iPhoto working again, but I had to trash the last two days photos. Live and learn.

Peek at the Past

(May 6, 2009)

[4 eggs so far today]

My egg count may be going down because of the broody hens?

~:>

Smiles