Lighsa is broody. Once she starts feeling broody in earnest, she’ll stop laying eggs,
for a month or so, while she hatches the chicks and then raises them. So broody hens are non-productive
hens. Even if you’re not worried about production,
a hen who sits on eggs that are not fertile, will sit and sit and sit, losing more and
more condition as she eats not very much, moves hardly at all, possibly not even drinking
very much. It can be quite hard on a hen doing all of that sitting and waiting and not looking
after herself. So unless you plan to hatch chicks from your broody hen, it’s really
a good idea to discourage her broodiness. And as you can see, she’s taking up a nest
box. That means the other hens are either going to squeeze in there with her, or they’re
going to find another place to lay. If they squeeze in there with her, there’s a risk
of damage to the eggs as they’re all fighting for the same space and the egg might get pushed
out onto the floor and break. And if they find somewhere else to lay, you’ll be hunting
for eggs all over the place. So if you don’t want your hens to go broody,
what can you do to avoid that happening? Well, the season makes a bit of a difference
to whether your hens go broody or not. They’re much more likely to go broody in spring, when
the weather’s warming up, the temperature gives their body an indication that it’s
time to start getting those hormones going, and of course that means lots of lovely warm weather for
raising chicks. There are a couple of things you can do to
either encourage or discourage broodiness. If there are eggs in the nest box, then that
will encourage hens to lay there, but it may also encourage them to be more broody. So
it’s a bit of a balancing act, do you leave the eggs in the nest box to encourage them
that that’s a good place to lay, or do you take them out of the nest box to discourage
them from being broody? One of the only real ways you can be sure
of not getting broody hens, if you don’t want them, is to choose what kind of breeds
of hens you keep. Lighsa here is a Light Sussex, and they’re a heavy breed that are inclined
to go broody. My Wyandottes are also inclined to go broody, as were the Orpingtons when
I had some. But the commercial breeds like the hylines and brown shavers, it’s extremely
rare for them to go broody. And the light breeds like the Leghorns very seldom go broody
either. So if you want to be sure to either have broody hens or not have broody hens,
then choose the appropriate breed. So if you don’t want this kind of behaviour,
you need to get onto it, and as quickly as possible. The sooner you get onto trying to
discourage her broodiness, the more effective you’re likely to be. The two keys are to
disrupt her peaceful dreaming of chickens, and to cool her down. When she’s broody
her body temperature goes up and that encourages more and more broodiness and the whole thing
is just a perpetuating cycle. So if you can cool down her body temperature, particularly
the area around her belly, then she’s less likely to carry on being broody and just sitting
and sitting as you see Lighsa doing here. So I start by just taking her off the nest
box whenever I see her there if I know she’s not actually there to lay an egg. I will take
her off and keep her away from the nest box for some time, possibly by locking her out
if I’m pretty sure that she’s finished laying eggs for the day. She’ll pace up
and down in a very agitated fashion if I do that, but that will help disrupt her peaceful
dreaming, as well as getting her moving. Whatever you do, make sure that after dark she’s
not sleeping on the nest box. If you have to, come in and pick her up and put her on
the perch during the night. There’s nothing like sleeping on the nest box all through
the nice cosy night to encourage broodiness. If none of that’s effective, then what I
do next is lock her in the broody box. Many people advocate some kind of a broody box
with a wire netting floor so that she can get up off the ground and have cooling breezes
on her tummy and there’s nowhere to settle down comfortably. Obviously she needs food
and water and a bit of shelter from the elements but it shouldn’t be too comfortable and
she really shouldn’t have anywhere to settle down in this brooding, sitting position.
If you’re too late and it’s just impossible to break her from being broody, then possibly
the only thing to do is to give her some fertile eggs and let her hatch the chicks.
So watch what happens when I try to disturb her.
There’s a little bit of aggression there, and that very typical ‘miaou’, that very typical kind of stance – all her
feathers are up, and a growl, she doesn’t want to be moved. But she’s going to be moved sorry.
C’mon.
Yes you did find a nice clutch of someone else’s eggs to lay on, didn’t you?
Now they’re aren’t any feathers in this particular nest box, but you’ll often find
that a broody hen will pluck out her own breast feathers to feather the nest with.
She doesn’t look too far gone. So here she is in the broody cage, while her
friends are enjoying a welcome break from the rainy weather. As I said she has food
and water in there, and protection from the rain, but it’s light and bright and breezy,
and there’s no nice cosy bedding to nestle in, just a perch or the cold damp ground.
At night I put her back on the perch with the others. If the next morning she behaves
normally, the job is done. I seldom have to do this more than a couple of days in a row
before she stops heading back to the nest box and her broody spell is over.
Thanks for watching.