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We have a broody hen. She always seemed like she had a tendency towards broodiness since the start, but now all she wants to do is sit in the nesting box whether there are eggs in there or not. You would think she would notice that most of the time she is sitting on nothing, just some straw. Apparently not. But a broody hen really is a pain in the proverbial, unless you actually want one to help hatch some little chooks.

She’s been cluttering up the nesting box when the others want to lay an egg, even though the nesting box is big enough for them to lay on the other side, of course. But apparently they all like to lay in the same two inches of the box. Go figure! So I guess the other chooks must have just been laying their eggs on her head and letting gravity do the work to get them down under her. Which is where we always found them.

So she has currently been placed in the naughty corner to try and get her back to full laying ability. Quite an expensive naughty corner though, as we had to purchase a new house in order to place her on her own. I could think of worse places to be if I was a chook in solitary confinement.

She has been there for two days now and currently no sign of an egg. But then we do think she got quite broody so it may take a little longer, possibly on her lonesome for a month (well so some of the literature tells us). It means for now instead of the two or three eggs a day we are down to only one or two.

And if the time out in the naughty corner does not work?… Hmmmm. What do we do with a surplus chook, since I am not sure I am willing to eat her? Might have to use here broodiness for what it’s actually meant for!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2012 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Animals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.