Letter

Broody Hens

Okay, I know this is a rather unusual topic, but this letter is for those people who, like me, enjoy having a small flock of laying hens. In most of our flocks, there comes a day when one or more of The Girls goes broody. She hunkers down in the nest box and won’t be budged. Absolutely everything irritates her, and she puffs up and squawks to let you know it. Talk about crabby! She becomes the Queen of Crabbiness! She stubbornly sits…… and sits……. but NO EGGS.
What to do? I’ve tried most of the usual suggestions, with a lot of bother and little success (like isolating her with no nest material and wire flooring). But usually I just wait her out. This can take weeks or months, and meanwhile she’s keeping others out of the nest box and she’s not laying eggs. Apparently she THINKS she is brooding a clutch of eggs and becomes obsessed with her maternal responsibility to keep them warm.
This summer, with three Girls gone broody for several weeks (while they should have been out hunting and pecking their way through the lush yard), I was running low on patience. In desperation (and that’s what it takes for a Luddite like me), I Googled “broodiness in hens” on the Internet. I found a suggestion that is simple, but I was skeptical. I tried it, and it worked! Here it is: To snap a hen out of broodiness, put a zip-lock plastic bag of ICE CUBES under her. It may take a couple of times, but chances are she will find those ice cube “eggs” just impossible to keep warm, and give up!
Happy ending!

Linda Hamilton
and the Hamilton Happy Hens