Ethel in the nesting box
About two months ago now, I walked out to the chook house one morning to find that overnight one of our chickens had transformed into a growling, rabid beast.
She’d taken command of the nesting box, and every time I went near her she let out a threatening growl, puffed herself up, and tried to bite me.
It was Ethel, one of the two Light Sussex chickens that Rick refers to as ‘the fat English ladies.’
“Ethel,” I said. “You’re a chicken, not a dog. Stop that.”
She growled again. It was clearly some kind of identity crisis. I scratched my head. What do you do when your chicken thinks she’s a dog?
Then it dawned on me. This was worse than an identity crisis. This was the day I’d been dreading.
We had our first broody chicken on our hands.
What’s a broody hen?
Before we got chickens, I had no idea what ‘broody’ really meant – at least not as far as it pertains to chickens.
Basically a broody hen just wants to hatch eggs. She sits on the nest all day, getting up only once a day to eat and do her business.
But when a broody hen separates herself from the flock in this way, it can upset the entire chook house. The pecking order can go haywire, and that upsets egg production. Who knew chicken society was so complicated?
On top of all this, our particular situation was further complicated by the fact that our geriatric rooster, Henry, is too old to do his manly duties. Not one of the eggs Ethel was trying to hatch was fertile, and they were never going to produce baby chicks. And to make matters worse, I’d heard that a broody hen could stay broody for over six weeks!
Well, I didn’t want to wait six weeks until we had order and eggs again. So I did what my little poultry keeping book told me to do.
An angry mama
Sunlight in the backyard
I put on a pair of gloves, reached in, and picked Ethel up. Her response was astounding. She hissed, clawed, growled, and fought as though her life (or her children’s lives) depended on it.
When I set Ethel down in the chicken run, she was crazed. She ran around screaming, squawking, and puffing up her feathers. Meanwhile, I reached into the nesting box and took every last egg laying there. I must confess I felt a little mean, but I thought that things would return to normal.
The very next day, she was back at it again – guarding the nesting box, trying to hatch some eggs.
Ongoing battle
Over the next week, I took that fanatical bird off her eggs over and over. Every single time she went right back. It didn’t matter whose eggs she sat on. They could have been iguana eggs, and she wouldn’t have cared.
In the end, Ethel proved more tenacious than me. I gave up. I moved her and her unfertile eggs out of the nesting box, put some extra hay on the floor in the corner of the chook house, and left her there. At least then the other hens could get into the nesting box. That is, if they ever felt like laying another egg again.
Ethel sat there on the floor for two more weeks. If she’d been a meditating Buddhist, she might already be enlightened.
But it didn’t go as well as I’d planned. The other hens actually started laying their eggs in Ethel’s nest on the floor when she was up for her daily break. It seemed everyone had forgotten all about the nesting box.
To continue to get some eggs, I marked Ethel’s older ones with big black X’s. That way I could tell when new eggs appeared.
From then on, every morning I had to get past a demented, obsessed chicken in order to get any fresh eggs. And given the state of chaos in the chook house, there weren’t even that many new eggs.
Enough is enough
Aquilegia (columbine) in the garden
Three weeks after my initial confrontation with Ethel, I was sick and tired of the whole thing. So, I did what I always do when I don’t know what do with our chickens. I called our neighbour Aussie Bronwyn, the High Priestess of Chicken Wisdom herself.
If anyone could tell me how to stop a hen from being broody, it was her.
I quickly found out she knew not one way, but two.
“There are two main ways to get a hen off the cluck,” she explained over the phone.
“How?” I asked, dying to know.
“Well, for the first way you need a bucket, and for the second way you need a trap…”
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Related posts
Find out what happens next: Ballad of the Broody Hen – Part 2
Read other posts about chickens.
Or read posts about our fantastic neighbors.
I would have made chicken soup, and got a new chicken.♥ I wouldn’t let him go to waste neither & then I’d get a new roaster too!☺
Not poor Ethel! :-)
Bah, purchase 3 or 4 fertile eggs, stick them under her, and let her go wild. After all, if she wants to care for the little buggers, why not? *grin*
Hi there – it must be catching. I’ve just broken a couple of my broody hens. A day in a dog cage set up in the chicken pen on her own did the trick and then blocking off the offending nesting box for another day. I had hens laying eggs all over but it worked and egg production is back to normal after a couple of days.
Damn, I hate waiting! Are you sure you can’t continue the saga, say, tomorrow……. please……..
HA! Our hens are so non-broody that they will literally lay an egg while walking away from it.
(knock wood that it doesn’t change!)
They don’t use the nesting boxes much either–the little divot in the floor of the Hen Palace is good enough for them. At least they’ve chosen a spot by the door so it’s convenient to retrieve the eggs before they fruz solid!
I’m with Laurentiius – chicken soup sounds like the best idea!
Oh! I think I know the bucket method. Not nice at all! My mum kept chickens – 99 of the “cluckers”. She did have 100, but the egg marketing board told her she’d have to register as a smallholder, so she gave one away. She told me about the bucket, but even she couldn’t do it – if I’m right – I don’t think you would do that either. Anyway, I’ll watch this space to read the High Priestess’s advice.
We have had similar times with a broody this summer, eventually after days and days of taking her off she did give up but yes, I did feel mean. I like the idea of getting some fertilised eggs and letting her sit much better than the chicken soup scheme.
That bucket method sounds ominous…
Better get her fertile eggs and let her enjoy her brood. So will the two of you, softhearted as you have turned out in all your previous farm adventures.
Hello from a Kiwi in Sydney, thanks for visiting my blog. I took the easy way out – I just bought my broody some fertile eggs.
For any information about other chook problems try this site: http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/
Great link. Thanks.
do you remember asking me why I got in some fake eggs for my broody to sit on? …. this is why……
Yes. I understand!
How about some alabaster eggs? Sturdy and durable — any chicken would be proud to sit on such — she would be broody but exultant.
Leave it to Uncle Oscar to come up with the most luxurious solution for Ethel ever!
I’ve just left the following answer to your comment on my blog:
It depends what you want to do with your broody hen. Do you want to put some fertile eggs under her and have chicks in three weeks time?
If her broodiness is inconvenient, then you need to build a “broody” coop”, a cage with a weld mesh floor to allow an uncomfortable cold draft around her belly and put her off being broody. Just feed her on plain wheat and make sure she has water.
I hope this helps.
If she sounds and acts like a dog, should she be seeing a psychiatrist!
Am waiting eagerly for the follow up.