There's a particular sound a broody hen makes when you reach under her—a low growl, almost like a tiny dinosaur, followed by a peck that means business. If you've heard it, you already know: one of your girls has decided she's going to hatch some chicks.
The funny part? There's usually nothing under her to hatch. No rooster in the yard, no fertile eggs, and there she sits anyway—flattened out in the nest box, puffed up like a feathered pancake, glaring at the world. Her instincts are running the show, and her instincts don't check the facts.
Here's how you know she's broody and not sick. She's parked in the nest box all day and cranky about leaving it. She's stopped laying. She might even pluck the feathers off her own breast to warm the eggs she wishes she had. It looks alarming, but it's normal springtime and summertime behavior—some breeds go broody at the drop of a hat.
If you're not hatching, you'll want to gently snap her out of it, because a broody hen won't lay and can run herself down if it drags on. Here's what we do:
- After the other hens finish laying—usually by one or two in the afternoon—lift her out of the nest box and set her down on the ground.
- Block the nesting box with a gallon jug filled partway with water. A cool, flat, no-comfort nest is the whole trick.
- Pull the jug before morning, then repeat the whole business the next afternoon.
- Give it three or four days. Keep an eye that she's eating and drinking through it all.
She will complain. She'll get vocal about her opinion of you. But most hens come around, and one morning you'll find her back out in the run, scratching and fussing and laying again like none of it happened.
And if you did want chicks someday? Well—that's a broody hen's dream come true, and a story for another post. Think Hatch The Chicken or Adoptions
