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Bob Tarte
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 Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 2:35 am Post subject: Stubbornly Broody Hen |
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I>m sure this has been asked already. But we>ve got a Black Cornish hen
who is determined to sit on a nest whether we take her eggs or not.
(And despite the fact that there>s no rooster.) I have even laid a
board over the straw, and she sat on the board.
We kept her outside the barn one day, but she acted so distraught and
nervous, that I haven>t had the heart to do it again. I keep hoping
she>ll just snap out of it. In the meantime, I hoist her off her nest
each evening (ignoring her exuberant hissing) and place her on the
floor next to the feed dish so that she will at least eat something.
Is there another way to break her of this? I suppose it is harmless
enough, but she>s missing some nice weather.
I>ve never had this problem with ducks or geese. They>re not as
stubborn as this hen!
Thanks so much.
Bob Tarte
--
Author of "Enslaved by Ducks"
Coming Fall 2003 from Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Info at http://www.enslavedbyducks.com |
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Christina Websell
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 3:05 am Post subject: Re: Stubbornly Broody Hen |
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Bob Tarte <btarte@cris.com> wrote in message
news:120820031734301282%btarte@cris.com...
[quote]I>m sure this has been asked already. But we>ve got a Black Cornish hen
who is determined to sit on a nest whether we take her eggs or not.
(And despite the fact that there>s no rooster.)
[/quote]
It doesn>t make any difference. They don>t realise whether or not their
eggs are fertilised.
[quote]Is there another way to break her of this? I suppose it is harmless
enough, but she>s missing some nice weather.
What often works is to get some draught (draft in USA?) under her. Like on[/quote]
a wire mesh floor. I think you call it hardware cloth. Food and water but
no bedding at all. If you could put her in a little cage where she is not
that comfortable a week should do it.
Cruel to be kind ;-)
Tina |
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Eileen Gregory
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:02 pm Post subject: Re: Stubbornly Broody Hen |
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Hopefully this will work for Bob, hasn>t worked for me. I have a hen, Crazy,
who has been sitting on a hardware cloth nest, no eggs, all summer. She gets
up to eat, drink, and poop, and then squawks and flaps around the pen and then
goes right back to the nest. My nest boxes all have hardware cloth bottoms
with pine straw bunched up to make them nice and soft. All the pine straw has
been long scratched out from her nest and still she sits! And heaven forbid
any other hen tries to lay an egg in HER nest box! She does this every year.
She>s a great mother and does a wonderful job at raising chicks. Problem is
that I have 9 roosters and can>t tolerate any more, since they eac seem to
require a separate pen. So I can>t let her hatch any more eggs! At elast I
neamed her well!
Eileen
Christina Websell wrote:
[quote]Bob Tarte <btarte@cris.com> wrote in message
news:120820031734301282%btarte@cris.com...
I>m sure this has been asked already. But we>ve got a Black Cornish hen
who is determined to sit on a nest whether we take her eggs or not.
(And despite the fact that there>s no rooster.)
It doesn>t make any difference. They don>t realise whether or not their
eggs are fertilised.
Is there another way to break her of this? I suppose it is harmless
enough, but she>s missing some nice weather.
What often works is to get some draught (draft in USA?) under her. Like on
a wire mesh floor. I think you call it hardware cloth. Food and water but
no bedding at all. If you could put her in a little cage where she is not
that comfortable a week should do it.
Cruel to be kind ;-)
Tina[/quote] |
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Christina Websell
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 11:53 pm Post subject: Re: Stubbornly Broody Hen |
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[quote]
Bob Tarte <btarte@cris.com> wrote in message
news:120820031734301282%btarte@cris.com...
I>m sure this has been asked already. But we>ve got a Black Cornish
hen
who is determined to sit on a nest whether we take her eggs or not.
(And despite the fact that there>s no rooster.)
It doesn>t make any difference. They don>t realise whether or not their
eggs are fertilised.
Is there another way to break her of this? I suppose it is harmless
enough, but she>s missing some nice weather.
What often works is to get some draught (draft in USA?) under her. Like
on
a wire mesh floor. I think you call it hardware cloth. Food and water
but
no bedding at all. If you could put her in a little cage where she is
not
that comfortable a week should do it.
Cruel to be kind ;-)
Tina
[/quote]
(Hopefully this will work for Bob, hasn>t worked for me. I have a hen,
Crazy,
who has been sitting on a hardware cloth nest, no eggs, all summer. She
gets
up to eat, drink, and poop, and then squawks and flaps around the pen and
then
goes right back to the nest. My nest boxes all have hardware cloth bottoms
with pine straw bunched up to make them nice and soft. All the pine straw
has
been long scratched out from her nest and still she sits! And heaven forbid
any other hen tries to lay an egg in HER nest box! She does this every
year.
She>s a great mother and does a wonderful job at raising chicks. Problem is
that I have 9 roosters and can>t tolerate any more, since they eac seem to
require a separate pen. So I can>t let her hatch any more eggs! At last I
named her well!
Eileen
(top post corrected)
Hi Eileen
You need to make it really uncomfortable. No straw! Nothing. Put her on
her own in a cage and make it horrible. Drafty from underneath. Nowhere she
can sit, just a bare cage. If that really doesn>t work in the end, give it
a couple of weeks, send her to me ;-)
I can never get enough broodies, mine almost never sit. Sometimes I get
really envious when people post that they have too many broody hens. I
wish.
Tina |
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Eileen Gregory
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 12:04 am Post subject: Re: Stubbornly Broody Hen |
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Hi Tina, I had 5 out of 11 hens broody for most of the summer. She has no
straw in her nest box just cold hard hardware cloth, drafty underneath. It
really doesn>t matter to me if she wants to sit there. She eats and drinks and
seems to stay healthy. I would love to let my hens hatch other peoples eggs,
they get so much pleasure from this. I think that we may be too far apart for
this! She is a very strong flier, but I doubt that she would make it across the
pond! She will soon be 6 years old.
Eileen
Christina Websell wrote:
[quote]
Bob Tarte <btarte@cris.com> wrote in message
news:120820031734301282%btarte@cris.com...
I>m sure this has been asked already. But we>ve got a Black Cornish
hen
who is determined to sit on a nest whether we take her eggs or not.
(And despite the fact that there>s no rooster.)
It doesn>t make any difference. They don>t realise whether or not their
eggs are fertilised.
Is there another way to break her of this? I suppose it is harmless
enough, but she>s missing some nice weather.
What often works is to get some draught (draft in USA?) under her. Like
on
a wire mesh floor. I think you call it hardware cloth. Food and water
but
no bedding at all. If you could put her in a little cage where she is
not
that comfortable a week should do it.
Cruel to be kind ;-)
Tina
(Hopefully this will work for Bob, hasn>t worked for me. I have a hen,
Crazy,
who has been sitting on a hardware cloth nest, no eggs, all summer. She
gets
up to eat, drink, and poop, and then squawks and flaps around the pen and
then
goes right back to the nest. My nest boxes all have hardware cloth bottoms
with pine straw bunched up to make them nice and soft. All the pine straw
has
been long scratched out from her nest and still she sits! And heaven forbid
any other hen tries to lay an egg in HER nest box! She does this every
year.
She>s a great mother and does a wonderful job at raising chicks. Problem is
that I have 9 roosters and can>t tolerate any more, since they eac seem to
require a separate pen. So I can>t let her hatch any more eggs! At last I
named her well!
Eileen
(top post corrected)
Hi Eileen
You need to make it really uncomfortable. No straw! Nothing. Put her on
her own in a cage and make it horrible. Drafty from underneath. Nowhere she
can sit, just a bare cage. If that really doesn>t work in the end, give it
a couple of weeks, send her to me ;-)
I can never get enough broodies, mine almost never sit. Sometimes I get
really envious when people post that they have too many broody hens. I
wish.
Tina[/quote] |
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nuele
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 12:58 pm Post subject: Re: Stubbornly Broody Hen |
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Bob Tarte <btarte@cris.com> wrote:
[quote]In article <3f3a890f$0$18257$afc38c87@vipnews>, Christina Websell
christina.websell@zoom.co.uk> wrote:
You need to make it really uncomfortable. No straw! Nothing. Put her on
her own in a cage and make it horrible.
Hi, Tina,
The solution sounds worse than the problem. As long as she eats, drinks
water, and stays healthy, I>ll let her have her nest.
Thanks much.
Bob Tarte
[/quote]
Hi Bob,
sorry if this is going to be a bit of a long post.
Whether a hen goes broody at all or not, is partly depending on her
genes. There are hens that never go broody at all (especially in old
purebreds created to be good layers).
If a hen goes broody, it means that her hormon levels change, and it
takes a while until this is achieved. During that while, the process can
always be disturbed.
Several points are necessary for a hen to go broody. Obviously, she
needs to be in lay first. In some breeds, like Japanese bantams, many
hens only need to lay ten or twelve eggs and then infallibly go broody.
Others need more time, they will lay all spring and not go broody until
the warmer summer weather.
Secondly, she needs to find friendly conditions for setting. A dark and
quiet place providing shelter, some nesting material like straw, and the
presence of eggs in the nest she has chosen or created, will make her
feel that it>s the right time for babies. So, when I want broodies in
early spring, I make sure there are clutches of fake eggs in several
dark nests and hope for the change of hormones ;-)
Later on in the year I don>t need any more chicks, but the hens don>t
always agree, and still want to hatch chicks. Now in order to keep them
from going broody the following hints help:
- take all eggs out of the nest boxes in the evening. By doing so, you
have controlled all nests for hens wanting to go broody at the same
time. If you find one in there, *do not let her sit in there overnight*!
The more time she has spent on a clutch (even if it consists of only one
egg, or even none), the more difficult it gets to "break her", because
the hormonal change will go on undisturbed. She will lose the feathers
on her tummy, fall into a kind of trance, eat only once a day, and live
from her resources, waiting for chicks....
- You>ll have to have an eye on hens you have found on the nest in the
evening. If taking her out at night and putting her on the perch with
the others (not on the ground which is too similar to a nest) is not
sufficient to disturb her broodiness, you will have to put her somewhere
where everything is contrary to good setting conditions:
- a light place
- where there is some action: other hens, a young rooster
- with no nesting material
- but with food and water of course.
It>s true that the hens at first act like crazy, and are distressed by
the thought that their eggs are cooling down in the nest. Still I think
it>s kinder to let her have a day of excitement than to let her sit for
weeks, let her get thinner and thinner, and not be rewarded by chicks.
They don>t know how long it takes until they hatch. They don>t count the
days. Like Eileen wrote, they can stay broody for ages.
I have a lot of hens that I have to watch carefully, and put under my
"broody prison" sometimes several times a year. (It>s sort of a large
flat cage with open bottom, big enough for several hens or a hen with
chicks.) If I catch them in the act early enough, they don>t need more
than two or three days to get their hormonal levels back to normal. In
any case they stop acting distressed after a day, especially if I give
them another hen for company, and although they may go on clucking, act
pretty normal in other respects. I don>t let them out until they have
stopped clucking, and after that I still have an eye on them for a
couple of days.
It>s not as cruel as you may imagine when you see a confined broody in
the first hours. This is indeed heartbreaking... but it soon subsides.
Tina says "make it horrible" - there is some truth in this. Great stress
will make them "sober" more quickly. That>s why the old farmers here dip
them into a bucket of cold water, or put them into a sack and hang them
up for days without water and food. This seems to work, but that>s
really cruel. I have made good experiences with the way I just
described.
Hope this helps a bit
Nuele (D)
--
to mail me, replace the fowls in my address by sap to avoid the spam
trap |
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Darkginger
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2003 2:00 am Post subject: Re: Stubbornly Broody Hen |
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nuele <fowls@nuele-online.de> wrote
[quote]Hi Bob,
sorry if this is going to be a bit of a long post.
[/quote]
<massive snip>
Just want to say thanks, on behalf of other semi-lurkers like me, for such a
wonderfully informative post. I>ve saved it! I thank you, my hens thank
you...
Jo
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.507 / Virus Database: 304 - Release Date: 04/08/03 |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2003 2:25 am Post subject: Re: Stubbornly Broody Hen |
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Matt,
thanks for that post!
i have 3 girls who are overly fond of trying to hatch the hay in their
boxes. They DO look ratty after a time. From now on I will break the
broodiness right off and stop the 3 weeks of stress. Never thought of it
from that perspective. THanks.
Roz |
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