Hi
I recently got chickens six months ago but had to give a rooster back and get a new hen.
Now the new hen sits on the nest even when eggs are taken away.
She squawks at my other hen but lets humans come close enough to remove the eggs. I have tried dunking her in a bucket of cold water but she soon goes back to the nest when ever she can
I am not sure if this is called broody because she is not on eggs and is still laying. also i am not sure what breed she is ( she is brown with white speckles all over her and has pink-yellow skin and brown eyes) but i think she is meant to be a non-broody breed.
Also there is a resident currawong (bird of prey) that i think might make her more protective of the eggs.
so my question is is this a broody hen or not?
Thanks in advance
Chickengrl
Broody or Not??
Hello chickengirl nice to see a new face on daves we are always here to help.
Is the chicken over a yearold?
How many hens do you have?
How long has she been sitting on the nest?
Why are you dunking her in water aren't you afraid she might get water in her lungs and get sick?
She might be broody, but dunking her in water won't stop her but it could kill her.
She would have to be more than 6mo old to get broody (we had a broody at about 8mo).
Usually when they are broody they won't even let a human close.
sounds broody to me. eggs or no, they will go thru the motions. try giving her a baby asprin if you don't want her to set. I have never tried it, but have read that it really works. Their temp goes up when they set and the asprin lowers the temp.
a broody will lay till she has her clutch of eggs and won't sit till she has her magic # of eggs in the nest. she sounds broody to me definately as long as she is of laying age being broody is possible.
i got a white showgirl, a white silkie, a partridge silkie, a blue silkie and a splash showgirl all broody, rotfl. it never ends here. put ice packs on her butt, kick her out of the nest and keep takeing her eggs it will break her faster. when broody they have feavers to keep their body temp up and to help them sweat for humidity on eggs. i do not know if asprin is toxic to a bird though, i think i would research that first. but yes it makes sence break the fever break the broody.
asprin are not toxic to poultry. It's an old common practice.
Thnxs for your help
Its ok i am not dunking her over her head, just so that her underside gets cooled down a little.
I have only two hens in the backyard.
I am not sure how old she is but she is weighs 900g (is this normal for a hen?) and is not laying poults eggs
She has been sitting for a week now.
I put some ice cubes under her butt and that seemed to help so thanks silkiechick
Thank you all for you help I appriciate that there is such a great website for chicken lovers because i can never find one!
-Chickengrl
your welcome any time and there is lots of poultry forums out there that can help.
asprin is toxic to alot of animals i said i didn't know if it was for birds or not, i ment in general not just poultry. i have used baby tylanol for them on frostbiten hens and surgery needed ones who needed amputated parts but not asprin so i wasn't sure.
Thanks the ice cubes really work well she is now not sitting on the eggs at all.
I am still not sure about the asprin thing because i think it wolud be a bad idea to try it out on her .
Still wondering about wether 900g is normal for a full grown hen
Thankys
900g (grams) is equal to 1.98 pounds. That is light for a full grown standard size chicken. Most chickens are between 3 to 6 pounds, some heavier. Small bantams can weigh that though.
If she is young, less than a year that may be normal and she will gain as she gets older.
3 to 6 pounds is about 1360g to 2722g.
This message was edited Nov 5, 2008 7:35 AM
i totally agree with smedge, sorry had to wait for a translate for weight, lol forgive my blondeness.
Silkie why do you think i didn't respond don't feel by yourself^_^
lol, i'm not good at math.
niether am i heck i have a scientific calculater to figure up stuff on.
thanks
my chicken is full grown and often seems sick but is under weight
do u think the broodiness might cause this or this might cause broodiness?
yes they loose weight when they r broody. it's not good for them to constantly be broody only way to break them is let them sit or try to make them not sit,lol. i have had deturmined silkies set for 4mths and nothing would break them so i had to finally just let them hatch in winter. if they loose weight to much i make sure they have food and water in the coop with them so it is easier to get too.
If mine won't stop being broody i move them to a cage without a nest for a while with no nest to sit on they give it up pretty soon.
Silly thought, but could she be pining away?? We had a hen do something similar and I've heard of, though not seen it. Ours just set-n-set-n-set until she was too light weight to do anything. We finally located her a roo and she hatched pretty quickly after that, but never gained back the weight. But she kept laying and setting until we left her enough eggs to hatch.