Old chook won't leave nest box.

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Lucylou

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I have an elderly French Faverole, a beauty, not sure exactly how old but when I took her in, that was about a year ago (she was going to be homeless!) I was told she was approx 6. Yesterday she was behaving quite normally, eating drinking etc, today she won't leave the nest box. The others have had to squeeze in beside her to lay.

To begin with (8am) I thought she was laying but she was still there when I went out a second time & still there now (3pm). She has eyes open & let me stroke her which is actually unusual in itself as she's not as tame as my others.

Would value someone more experienced opinion. I fear it might just be 'old age' but as none of my others have died of old age, they've either been taken by Mr Fox or not recovered from an illness so I don't have anything to go by. I'm not sure if I should do something for her. I took some water for her but she wasn't interested.
 
Has she gone broody Lucylou? Put a pot egg, or any egg, beside her and see if she tucks it under her wing. Sometimes broodies are initially silent, so no raised feathers or noises at all.
 
I agree with Chris, Lucylou,
It does sound like a case of the broods. I have 3 Pekins at the moment playing at being broody, just hugging the nest boxes, refusing to move, and growling at me if I dare to touch them.
When the problem is a bit more serious, they are listless or look just plain miserable and are not usually nest box hugging.
Hope she is OK.
 
Did she go broody at all last year? If not, it's not likely she will start at her advanced age. Has she recently been laying? Normally, broodiness comes on after a hen has continuously laid the equivalent of a clutch of eggs, around 15-20 at least. Then her hormones kick in and she begins to want to brood them. She will also object quite forcefully when you try to remove her from the nest box, growling and possibly pecking, not just sitting there,
As she's probably at least 7 by now, which is pretty old for a hen, even a purebred, she may be just winding down, as you suggested. However, for a previously active hen of any age, this doesn't sound good. Until this happened, did she still lay occasionally? If so, were the eggs soft shelled? Could she be eggbound? In elderly hens at the end of lay, peritonitis is always a possibility, when the egg moves into the abdomen instead of the oviduct, and decomposes there because there's no way out. Hens have very strange insides! This is terminal, and would present itself with a hen becoming inactive and unable to move away from contact which normally she wouldn't have welcomed. Hens camouflage pain and illness as best they can because the others usually move in and bully a sickly one.
I would take her out of the nestbox and keep her under observation in a separate box or small run, offering food and water, although she may not want either. If she can't stand or walk by herself, then I would strongly suspect abdominal pain, in which case, handling her may be painful, and maybe a trip to the vet is needed?
 
Thank you everyone. I've been thinking she could have gone broody but as I've never experienced a broody chook I wasn't sure how to recognise the symptoms except the obvious of sitting on eggs!

I was surprised to see her out with the others first thing this morning on the perch, but couldn't lock her out of the house as one was laying & I thought yesterday she just had an 'off' day. Next thing she'd gone back in & is sitting there. Its very annoying as I want to do a spring clean today as the weathers so nice it will dry quickly :roll:

Marigold, she has laid quite regularly this year. As I was told she didn't lay anymore, last year I probably put any of her eggs down to one of my others (they lay very similar colours) but recently I had 4 eggs one day so I knew one was hers definitely! I will try Chris's suggestion & put an egg near her & see what happens.

I'm away next week & someone else is feeding them for me so I hope she sorts herself out by Saturday or we'll have a problem.
 
Sounds good today. If she has been laying, and was up with the others, she's probably OK but may indeed be going broody. Could you pen her in a corner, with food and water, but nothing comfortable to snuggle down in? The extra light is what she needs for her hormones to change back to normal if she's broody, plus the slight stress of being separated from the others in the day, and being left out of the coop on her own at night, will usually effect a cure within a few days. It's important to do this at the earliest signs of wanting to sit in the nestbox, as the longer you leave it, the longer a cure will take.
My Marigold is having this treatment at the moment, for the first time this year. Some people cage their broodies, but I find its just as effective to pen them in good daylight, on their own where they can see the others. Start today, and she may be normal by the weekend. Unless of course you want her to sit, in which case you'll need to set up a separate broody coop and small run for her, and get some fertile eggs, before you go away. But unless you intend to do this, it's best to break her of useless broodiness ASAP.
And if it does turn out that she's actually not very well, being separated will help her in any case.
 
Today its been raining hard all day, my broody hasn't left the nestbox at all since yesterday as far as I can tell. I've no experience of this so need advice please.

I put an egg (which I'd marked) beside her yesterday as Chris suggested & sure enough when I went out a few hours later she had taken in under her. She tried to peck me this time when I tried to look under her so not so docile now.

Marigold, do I physically lift her out? Difficult to isolate her but might be possible if the weather is fine tomorrow but of course that would only be for one day as I go away Saturday (why do these things always happen when we're going away!) I have an Omlet Cube house so I could take the side off which would let in the light to the nest box, would this help? The forcast for tomorrow is good so there would be quite a lot of sun for part of the day going into the house (the afternoon is goes round to the back so its in the shade)

If I wasn't away I'd be keen to let her sit on some eggs but can't do that now. Am worried about her eating & drinking, what is the best thing to do in this situation & for next week? The person feeding them has some experience of chooks but not for many years, he's never kept his own chooks so want to make it as easy as possible for him.

Stress ! :-)07 :roll: :o
 
The only way to get her off being broody is to get her out of the nestbox and coop, night and day, for several days, and expose her to light. Light stimulates her pituitary gland, and will gradually restore the hormones that control laying. Inside a coop, nestbox, or any other dark and comfortable place, these hormones will be shut off and she will instead be flooded with brooding hormones. The greater the concentration of these in her bloodstream, the harder it will be to break her broodiness. Yes, they do always choose their moments, don't they? If you let her go on brooding for a week whilst you are away, it will be very hard to break her when you get back. But, with the right treatment now, she will be better in a week's time.
Have you by any chance got a length of Omlet chicken netting, or similar? If so, would it be possible, and safe, to make a circle of this on your lawn, on open ground, and pop her in there during the day for the next few days? I've done this as a way of breaking Marigold, and it works well. She marches around indignantly, making a fuss, but letting air get to her brood patch, and being affected by stress so she gradually decides that chicks are not a good idea after all, until in the end she gives in under the influence of the light and gets back to normal. I made a shelter out of an old table to provide cover for her feeder and shade for her if she wanted it, but they don't seem to mind getting wet and it does them no harm when the temperature is well above freezing. At night I restored her to the run after the others have been shut in the coop, and she just stayed outside the coop but in the safety of the run. Your friend would only have to put her out in the morning and back in the evening after the others have gone to bed. However, I don't know how secure against predators you feel your garden to be. If there are local foxes prowling, this wouldn't be safe.
There comes a time in every chicken keeper's experience when one realises that an extra coop and small run would be extremely useful, not only to deal with broodies but with sick hens or new arrivals that need isolating and quarantining before rejoining the flock. Alternatively, if you get to the stage of having a larger walk-in run, it's very simple to fence off a temporary corner of the run to separate a chicken for a few days. Coop-and-run connected combos are not the most convenient at times such as these.
If you just have to let her sit when you're away, get your friend to move her off the nestbox twice a day and exclude her for a while, so she has a chance to eat and drink, as you would a real broody on eggs. When you get back you will have to plan for her recovery, as you shouldn't let her start to sit on eggs this time, after she has had over a week of sitting before starting to incubate a real clutch. The strain on her would be too great.
 
Thank you Marigold. I will have a look at what I've got & see what I can rig up. I do have a spare coop which is my isolation ward (she was in it when I first got her) but it doesn't have a run attached, previously I've been able to rig up a netting enclosure within the main run as it was much larger than what I have now. My current set-up is a walk-in run with the Omlet Cube currently positioned about 2/3rds the way down (although the run has 2 entrances one is temporarily blocked up by corrugated plastic as a winter wind shield) which doesn't leave a good space to section off. I do have a couple of extra panels that came with the run that I wasn't able to use so one of these might work as a divider but will have to sort something out to go over the top otherwise I can see the others hopping over to see her, she can't fly but the others can!

So this sounds like a daft question but do I literally lift her out of the nestbox, ignoring her protests & put her in this isolation unit? And does she have nothing in there except food & water, no coop to sleep in? And would she stay there for the week on her own 24 hours a day?
As the person looking after them is the builder working on our house he is the perfect person to help with cobbling something together for this purpose!

Who said chickens are an easy hobby?!!
 
Yes, you may feel cruel, but honestly, it's the kindest thing to do, as if she just sits and sits, it would be like a false pregnancy, she would lose a lot of weight and condition, not eating, drinking and exercising, not good at her age, and not even have any dear little babies at the end of it. When hens go deeply broody they go into a sort of trance, don't want to get up to eat or drink, and can in the end even die, if no chicks are hatched after the three weeks of normal incubation.
Turf her out of the nest box, and put her into the sin bin, as you have planned. Fix up a cover over enough of the wire to give her a dry place to sleep on the bare ground, and provide shade if it's hot. If she has food and water, she will still be able to see the others through the wire and so she will be able to rejoin them without integration problems.
Don't worry about her not being in a coop at night, so long as she's safe from predators, remember she's a bird, not a human, and birds normally live in the open air. Chicken coops have only been invented in a very recent blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, and almost entirely for the convenience of poultry keepers, rather than for the chickens themselves.
When my Marigold has been in there for 4 days, I let her out during the day and watch to see what she does. If she returns to the nestbox, she gets another 48 hours in her 'bedroom.' If she stays out in the run with the others, she's cured, for the time being! She then returns to laying eggs after about another two weeks, when her system is fully re- set. So if you can start today, and if your friend can get to be interested in the project, he could try letting her back on Monday or Tuesday afternoon and see what she does. However, now I know the signs I confine Marigold before she has had a good chance to get to the hissing and spitting stage, so recovery is usually very fast. As yours has had a few days to settle in, it may take a bit longer.
 
Thank you for that useful info Marigold, I now know what to do. I have already turfed her out, she was grumpy but not too bad surprisingly. She is now on the outside of the run with the others inside, best solution at the moment, its a fenced off area so she still has probably too much freedom for this purpose but at least no nesting box or comfy nook. Its too big to secure for overnight fox proofing but I'll rig up an area inside later.

Phew!
 
That sounds fine. Well done, good thing you had time to think what to do before you go away. Have a lovely holiday, don't worry about your hen, and let us know how she gets on, when you return. Next time, it won't be so time- consuming and stressful for you!
 
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