Chickens Every Day
Dedicated to helping backyard chicken owners keep the happiest and healthiest flocks we can.
Chickens Every Day
Breaking Broody Hens
Are we ready, pawpaw? Hello friends and welcome to Chicken. Every Day, a podcast for you, the backyard chicken enthusiast, and mine. Your host is my Pawpaw, gary, Gary Valerie of Senla Backyard Chickens. Here we have fun while sharing ideas and learning how to care for our foul-feathered friends. Check out our videos at Senla that's C-E-N-L-A Backyard Chickens on YouTube, tiktok and Facebook. So, without further ado, let's start today's show. How was that?
Speaker 2:Hello friends, gary, with CENLA Backyard Chickens here with you again, and right now I have some broody hens. Chances are you may be experiencing that yourself and if you're doing this for the first time, you may be, you may have some questions. You may be curious about what's going on with them. You may not even be sure what a broody hen is and if you have a chicken acting this way then you're going to find out today. But I mean to put it simply a broody hen is a hen who decides she wants to be a mama. She, she wants to hatch eggs and raise some chicks. It's a natural behavior, it's instinctual with them and for hens it's driven by hormonal shifts and it gives them strong maternal instincts. She's going to have an increase in body temperature, sometimes as much as 110 degrees. Normally chickens have about 101 degree body temperature, 101 or so, and some breeds are more inclined to go broody than others. So if you have silkies and colchins and arpingtons and some of the other broodier gals, like light brahmas and the sussex, just about any breed can go broody, but these, you know, are really really good at it and there's breeds, like some of the mediterraneans, that have had the broodiness almost completely bred out of them over the years and and that leghorns and acanas and maracas and certain other hybrids like that even like, I think, an isa brown is a tough chicken that you know hardly ever goes broody. Right now I've got a blue americana and a golden cuckoo maran that are broody and if you're curious about how you know if your hen's broody first off she's going to quit laying, then she's going to actually stay in the nesting box. Almost every time you go out there you're going to find her in the nesting box and she's going to be very irritable when you get to her. She's going to be really protective of her nest and she wants a nesting box that she feels like is going to be safe and dark and it's a protected area where she can hatch her eggs out. When you get up to the box where she's at, she's going to fluff her feathers and you're going to hear all this growling from her. She is not going to like that at all. She's going to flatten herself out over the box because she wants to get the most surface area that she can for the eggs. You're going to hear that broody cluck, that cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck cluck. You know that broody heads do. When you do see them off the nest and they go to the bathroom, there's what's called a broody poop and it is a mess and it's usually going to be big, stinky and gross. But I mean, this is what happens, because she just holds it in for so long that this is what happens when she finally gets to go.
Speaker 2:Personally, I think that unless you're going to raise chicks, that a hen should be broken. You should break a broody hen Now. You don't want to do that. Like I said, if you want to hatch out chicks and, like I said, while this is a completely natural behavior, it isn't always that healthy for the hen, especially if she doesn't have fertile eggs to hatch. You know broody hens. They're going to drink less, they're going to eat less, they're going to exercise less, all contributing to losing weight, becoming dehydrated and overall unhealthier. And when they're allowed to stay broody for extended periods of time, her health is bound to decline and most experts out there agree. If you're not wanting her to hatch or raise chicks, then breaking her broodiness is actually best for the bird. Usually, a hen's going to go brood in the spring a minor kind of late spring, early summer this year, and, as with most chicken facts, this is never written in stone. So if you want to know how to break a broody hen, there's several ways that you can look on the Internet to see how people do it.
Speaker 2:I always tell everyone, whatever you do, be humane, be gentle with your chicken. Don't do this shock treatment. There's several ways to do it. You know. Like I said, some of them are radical and not on the friendly side, and most of those are really not all that effective anyway. But the one that I use most often is a putter in a broody breaker or gel, and for me I use my brood box. It's a small pen that I put my chicks in. I still provide her plenty of water and food and, like I said, that chick brooder doubles as chicken gel. If I have more than two at a time, it's too small to put two or three hens in, so I'll put them in my grow out pen. If I'm not using it at the time. I'll put them in there and I won't allow them to have a nest box or anything. I'll keep them there a minimum of four or five days, sometimes a week or more, but I'll give them a test after four or five days, if she's ready.
Speaker 2:Her behavior starts to change back to normal. She quits growling when you walk up there to it. Now don't rush it, because sometimes they'll fool you. You let them out and they don't go anywhere near the nest and you turn your back and pretty soon they're right back on the nest again. So, trust me, it's better to go long than to have to repeat this Again. It gets more unhealthy every time you do it for the bird and it just prolongs the inevitable that we want to try to do.
Speaker 2:I will also keep a small fan blowing on low or medium if the weather's warm enough, just to help to keep her body temp down, because, remember, her body temperature goes up when she gets to be broody. And the fresh water that we keep in there, and the fresh water that we keep in there and the fresh food that she always has to her. We don't want her to suffer in any way, and that's my method and it's one that's pretty well widely adopted by most people that I know and probably one of the more humane ways to do it. Sometimes I will also submerge my bird in water. As long as they don't freak out, I keep a little kiddie pool out there and I keep it full of water. They like to drink out of it and sometimes in the heat of the summer they'll stand in it to help them cool off. And I may submerse, you know, them in there and I not dunk them or anything but just get their, their chest and their bottom and everything in there and kind of help them cool off, especially whenever I put them back in the brooder and that fan's blowing that cool air on them. It helps cool their body temperature down and that all goes towards getting rid of the broodiness in her. To help you in this process, you don't want her to sit on any eggs.
Speaker 2:If she's on the nest in the nesting box, always keep the eggs picked up. I've heard heard, madam president, on Chickenlandia, ms Dahlia say she takes hers for a car ride, puts them in a box, hauls them in the car and I guess just the sheer shock of oh, my word, what's going on, you know, can help break that broodiness. I've never done that. I have tried to use distractions. I've carried them around for extended periods of time. Of course you set her down and you don't want to set her down anywhere near the nesting box. Give her a chance to free range, get things off of her mind, give her some nice snacks that they love, but always, if it's convenient, block her access to the nesting box. Now, you don't want to do that. If you're also blocking your other hens that need the nesting box because you want them to be able to lay like they want and, if you're able, take her out and away from the rest of the flock. Even if it takes two weeks for this to work. She's going to growl and grumble and ruffle her feathers and be really, overall, pissed at you. But helping this now would definitely give her a better chance to get through this in the long run versus just letting this extend. This can go on for a month or more if you just leave it and let nature run its course and not let her hatch anything While the brooding hen can.
Speaker 2:This sounds kind of harsh. Like I said, I do contend that most times it's actually a good thing to do. Most experts and you can read on the internet about this most experts will agree that breaking that hen from being broody when you're not wanting her to hatch is overall best for the bird's health. So whichever method you choose. Just make sure to do this in the most humane way that you can. Don't expect her to go back to laying. You know, if you know she's broken from being broody, she won't go back on the nest. Two or three days down the road, okay, she still hasn't gone to the nest. I feel pretty confident she's broody, but there's no eggs coming from her. This is going to take a couple of weeks for her egg cycle to get started up and going again. So be patient with her. Keep an eye on her. Just make sure she doesn't go back. I have had hens that stayed off for about a week and just went right back to it. Some of them are just really, really tough to break. But hope this helps. Internet's a great, great source.
Speaker 2:Don't go in for people doing this really harsh methods and scaring the bejeebies out of your birds and doing something really drastic. Harsh methods and scaring the bejeebies out of your birds and doing something really drastic. You know the chicken gel is about the best thing that you can do. Ease them into a cool bath is also good for the birds as well to help cool their body temperature down. But I mean, don't dunk them in ice water or anything shocking like that. So, guys, if you've got any questions or comments, please let me know. Always love to hear back from you. We'd love to hear any suggestions you have for any future podcasts. Also, if you heard the one before this one always looking for someone to interview and to talk with on the show. You don't have to be an expert in chickens, you just have to really love these birds and want to talk about your birds. So let me know. You can find me at chickenseverydayatyahoocom. The email address is chickenseverydayatyahoocom. Give me an email. I'd love to chat with you about birds. Talk with you again soon. Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:That's all we have time for today. I really hope you enjoyed listening to the podcast. Be sure to watch our videos. So, on behalf of my Papa, gary, and me, sylvie, thanks for listening.
