Help with determined broody - eggs required!

[Anonymous]

Hi.

We currently have a broody who will not come off of the brood - if anyone has any sussex bantam or call duck eggs please contact me.

We can postage or collect. If she does not get some hatchlings we may end up loosing her - she is determined.

Thanks

Kate & Martin

 

[snifter]

Have you found eggs for her?

if not then to break her of her broodiness you really need to be tough and shut her out of the hen house all day and then pop her on a perch at night in the dark. I usually put determind broody hens in a wire cage with water and food for a few days. Mostly though I tend to put them in a run on bare ground, usually grass. So long as you keep shutting her out of the hen house and nest boxes she should get the hint eventually. It can sometimes take a week or longer to break them but it can be done. I've had no end of broody hens this year and have broken them all other than the ones I sat on eggs earlier in the year.

 

[Tim]

I had a very determined broody this year - I made sure she was coming off to eat / drink / defecate every day (ideally morning and night) and eventually she gave up after 8 weeks.

Not ideal if you want eggs though! As I want utility birds, she's been ringed and won't go into my breeding pen next year.

Another thing I sometimes do is put a broody in a run with a young cockerel who is very pleased to see a new hen! He runs around the field after her keeping her busy and usually after a week, she forgets about being broody.

Tim

 

[Anonymous]

As a kind of connected issue, when is to late in the year to be hatching chicks?
I have a similar predicamant, in that one of my hens gas gone broody, unfortunately, she was only just into proper lay and gave an eggevery other day, so that now leaves me with one other hen in lay and as there is no male in the flock, it's a bit pointless, unless I get some fertile eggs. I discussed this with a friend who is an experienced chicken keeper and he said that it would result in rearing chicks in the winter, whichcould be a sight issue, what with me bot getting hone till 6:30 to tend to them in the evening and also I will have to build additional accomodation. What are peoples thoughts?

 

[snifter]

This late in the year I'd not out eggs under a hen or in an incubator.

Its 3 weeks till they hatch, another 6 weeks or so till they could start to come off heat and as its getting cooler they would probably need it on for longer, so 8 weeks or more even. If with a hen, again its late for her also. She will miss out on all the good sunshine and warm weather and won't be in great shape for autumn and winter. Then chicks miss out on warm outside weather if under a lamp for weeks.

I'd tough it out and break her of the broodiness if it were me.

 

[girlracer265]

oops reading that i should not of let my pekin go broody then, but i hate interfering with nature to be honest.
luckily i'm down south and we normally get fairly good weather through to november (fingers crossed lol )

 

[snifter]

oops reading that i should not of let my pekin go broody then, but i hate interfering with nature to be honest.
luckily i'm down south and we normally get fairly good weather through to november (fingers crossed lol )

Its not just the first weeks but the rest of the winter with young birds you have to contend with. They don't have the benefit of sunshine, warm weather and all the goodness in the grazing in the middle of winter. Plus they are of course still small (not being full grown) and I find never tend to do as well as those hatched in spring and early summer. They have many months ahead of them before being full grown so being born in spring and early summer gives them the best chance. Also if we have rain now its not only wet, but colder. Not good for young birds with new feathering, esepcially birds like Pekins with feathered feet and low to the ground.

Also as I said the condition of the broody leaves a lot to be desired once done rearing chicks. If she hatches them I'd be keeping her in every night because its getting chillier now (I'm down south also) and she won't have the benefit of being able to roost with others to keep warm overnight. I'd defo not leave her and the chicks (if they have hatched yet) outside overnight. If she is still sat on them I'd be looking to bring her inside already tbh.

Then there are the shorter days, not so good light etc. All benifical for broody recovery and chicks good growth. Longer daylight hours mean more feeding time and sunshine for warmth.

In all honesty, I don't see it as a bad thing to stop a hen being broody. You can't let every hen sit on eggs every year so have to be a bit tough in what ones you let sit IMHO. If I let every broody hen sit I'd be swamped with chicks no one wants and I can't afford to raise and keep. So I am selective with my breeding birds and if I buy any eggs in only put them under proven broodys to be more confident they won't give up on them or something.

 

[Tim]

I think it's tough deciding on when to let a broody sit. If she's incredibly determined or I'm not around enough to stop her, I will give her dummy eggs to sit on but it's all down to personal husbandry

- if you want your hens to be poductive then broodiness can be a pain since you're not getting eggs for quite a few weeks but then if you take the view that they are pets and you don't need her to produce loads of eggs then it's quite harmless to let her go broody.

It would be impossible for me to let every broody sit on eggs and hatch chicks - especially at this time of year.

One positive I can think of for hatching late (and yes I still have some eggs in an incubator at the moment because I've got one here for review but normally wouldn't hatch this late) is that if you keep a utility strain then the best way to improve egg numbers is by hatching the eggs from hens that are still laying late in the season. This is because the more eggs a hen lays, the longer her egg laying season is and by incubating these late eggs you will be hatching eggs from hens with a good egg yield. This saves using trap nestboxes and counting eggs from a specfic hen.

Tim