Are you kidding me, Gracie?!

[Jaye]

So, here's the scoop on what's happening in our coop ATM:
1. Memphis, my Ameraucana, went into a MAJOR moult last week. Thankfully she's recovered from leg mites and whatever mystery ailment she had last week where she was all hunched up, runny green , not eating much and avoiding me like the plague. No impacted crop, or obvious evidence of internal laying, no parasites since everyone was dosed with Ivermectin, The other possibility was cancer. Stress-aid in the water seemed to sort that out. She looks like 'h.e.double hockey sticks', but she's active, eating and drinking and ing normally again.
2. Twyla, my second oldest girl, stopped laying this week. No obvious health problems, She just quit. I'm thinking she's about to do a repeat of last January - hard moult.
3. Bronwyn and Penelope have not resumed laying since finishing their respective moults. Probably due to not enough hours of daylight.
4. Annemieke, who started her moult a little later than B and P, not not much, seemed to be back on full feather, but like her refeathered flock mates, is not producing any eggs.
5. Last, but not least, Gracie has decided that it's a good time to go broody. She's my Silkie, so I really need some tips on how to break her broodiness, since we are headed into winter temps very soon. She's in one of the nest boxes, which I don't think I can block off during the day - even though no one is laying - or can I? Is the fact that there is zero egg production ATM actually a blessing?

The rest of the gang have been staying indoors for the last few days, since some of the snow that fell has been blown into the covered part of the run. I did shake the snow off a lot of the straw bedding, and hubby plans on getting the rest of the plastic up in order to minimize further snow getting in, but still no interest in hanging out in the run during the day. My concern is that if one of them does decide to lay, and I have blocked off the nest boxes, they will potentially be laying in a pile of in the coop bedding.


Any suggestions?

[SandyM]

Can you pen her? Dog crate her? No boxes?

Damn!! I want a broody Silkie.

[Jaye]

Yes, I have a crate, but there's not enough room in the coop to keep her integrated when they are all inside. All day. Thing is, it's going to get cold, so I can't have her in a crate or out in the run by herself because she needs community chicken warmth. Plus, putting her in a crate is pretty much the same as her commandeering a nest box. The difference being that it''s way easier for me to pick her up out of the nest box for a daily eat-poop-dustbath-walkabout, than it is to take her out of a crate to do the same. I do appreciate the suggestion, though. Broody hens also lose condition while broody, and if they aren't moving about, just sitting, and only fueling up once or twice a day, it's even more difficult for them to stay warm in the cold temps. Doug the Chicken Man mentioned in a thread on PSO that because of this, one of his Silkies perished during the winter when she went broody, and that's why he now always breaks their broodiness in winter.

p.s. yes, broodies are great, but ... when they decide to go broody does not necessarily align with your timetable - they have their own plan, and they keep it a secret.

[Robbie]

Jaye I'm trying to break my broody cornish right now- I put her in a small wire cage, wire bottom, no comforts except food and water. I let her out to play with the others and when she comes back in as soon as she heads for the nest box back in the cage. I put her on the roost at night. Supposedly the most humane way to break broodiness.

[Jaye]

Thanks, Robbie - appreciate the advice. Will give that a try, starting tomorrow. They are all tucked in for the night now, so it seems kind of pointless to move her onto the roost.

[windwalkingwolf]

How is it working? I've never tried to deliberately break a broody, so I'm curious. Did she go broody with NO eggs??!! Most of mine wait until there's a nest full :/ I might have to get some silkies LOL I'm glad Memphis is feeling better :)

[Robbie]

How is it working? I've never tried to deliberately break a broody, so I'm curious. Did she go broody with NO eggs??!! Most of mine wait until there's a nest full :/ I might have to get some silkies LOL I'm glad Memphis is feeling better :)

Worked great, I've been mucking around all week tossing her off the nest, putting her on the roost at night, etc. but it only took 24 hours in the cage and that was that, no more nonsense.
She went broody with at the most 3 eggs in the nest box, but there was always one golf ball in a nest and she went back to it even after I took the golf balls out.

[Jaye]

How is it working? I've never tried to deliberately break a broody, so I'm curious. Did she go broody with NO eggs??!! Most of mine wait until there's a nest full :/ I might have to get some Silkies LOL I'm glad Memphis is feeling better :)

This has been my first real effort to break a broody too. Every other time I just let her snap out of it on her own. The only reason I though I should try this time is because of the really cold temperature days and nights at the the time she started.
Yes, she does sit on nothing when she's broody. She does try to steal any eggs that are being laid by the others, but I remove any that I find under her every day.
It hadn't occurred to me to include a Silkie when I was putting together my flock, but an opportunity presented itself, and I thought, why not? I wanted a mixed flock anyway. I'm really glad I wound up with her. She's a little bird with a big personality.

Status update:
I am happy to report that Gracie snapped out of her broody spell last Thursday. YAY!
I took note of all the good advice I've been given, and made some decisions on what to do and what not to do, based on the particular setup and circumstances at the time:
1. At the time she went broody, no one was laying: Memphis was well into a terrible moult, and Twyla got serious about her moult at around the time that Gracie got seriously broody.
2. At the same time we had the first big snow fall with nasty winds and then the temperatures plummeted to -24 at night. Since I had two "over-achiever" moulters and one broody, I thought it best to provide some auxiliary heat to the coop at night during the cold snap. Either that, or bring the three of them inside. Umm, no. I'd rather not if there's an alternative. because that arrangement comes with its own set of challenges: finding a location for three chickens in the house, getting them re-acclimated to the weather outside again afterwards, potential re-integration issues, especially if they're spending their days inside the coop during inclement weather, etc.
3. I did block off the nest boxes - no one was using them anyway at the time - so she wound up spending her days sitting in a corner of the coop.
4. I made a point of putting Gracie up on the roost with the other every night. This was sort of successful - I think it helped her to snap out of it sooner. BUT, because the home-built "light bulb in a clay pot" heater for the plastic waterer actually did double duty as a red night light , little miss jumped right back down to the floor of the coop as as soon as I left for the light. So the next day I made a design modification to the heater: I added a piece of round 2mm-thick aluminum to fit flush with the top of the clay pot so that when the waterer sits on it, so then very little light made it through, and the coop was dark after lights out. I put her up on the roost with the rest of the hens and left, thinking "problem solved". Not. I went in early the next morning before the lights came on and found her back in the corner on the floor again. I figured she had just done a blind free-fall and hoped for a soft landing. Lucky that's what happened. She could have broken something. After that, I decided that I would just let her be, since the night time temperatures at that point were on the way up again, and I was still providing some heat to bring the coop temperature up to between 5 and 10 degrees above outside ambient temperature (e.g., -23C outside equals -13C in the coop).
5. I decided that putting her in a wire bottom cage on the really cold days would serve no purpose other than create perfect conditions for frost bitten feet: humid body heat meets cold conductive wire. All day. I think that the cold ambient temperatures helped her to decide to quit without my having to resort to putting her an anti-broody cage.

Anyway, all is well again, and even the egg drought is over! Penelope and Annemieke each laid an egg on Saturday, and again yesterday. Two eggs every other day works for me. Even if they hadn't gone back to laying until the warmer weather, that would be okay too, though, because I can only collect eggs when I get home at the end of the day, so when it's really cold and they are laid in the a.m., it's possible that they will be frozen and split by the time I get to them. I do have a piece of insulation in the bottom of each nest box, as well as lots of extra bedding, but sometimes it's just not enough.

[Robbie]

That's great! All is well. Spring is coming!!!!

There's something new I found out about, someone recommended giving a broody hen aspirin to break the broodiness- the theory being it stops prostaglandin production, needed for broodiness.
Might be an old wive's tale but I plan to try it next time someone goes broody. There was no dose information, but I figured since you need a medium dose to block prostaglandins, the recommendation is 650 mg dose max 4 times a day for a human. I extrapolate for a 55 kg human, that would be a dose of approx. 12 mg/kg. So for a chicken, in my case a cornish weighing in at a hefty 4 kg, I'd need about 50 mg of aspirin or a twelfth of a pill. Probably it would be easiest to crush a 650 mg pill and dissolve in water, doing the math when I get an exact weight of the chicken.
Kind of coarse but without data it's all a guess, I'll see if it works.

Jaye you only have 3 hens??????????

[Jaye]

That's great! All is well. Spring is coming!!!!

There's something new I found out about, someone recommended giving a broody hen aspirin to break the broodiness- the theory being it stops prostaglandin production, needed for broodiness.
Might be an old wive's tale but I plan to try it next time someone goes broody. There was no dose information, but I figured since you need a medium dose to block prostaglandins, the recommendation is 650 mg dose max 4 times a day for a human. I extrapolate for a 55 kg human, that would be a dose of approx. 12 mg/kg. So for a chicken, in my case a cornish weighing in at a hefty 4 kg, I'd need about 50 mg of aspirin or a twelfth of a pill. Probably it would be easiest to crush a 650 mg pill and dissolve in water, doing the math when I get an exact weight of the chicken.
Kind of coarse but without data it's all a guess, I'll see if it works.

Jaye you only have 3 hens??????????

I actually have six, but only three are currently in the " need special attention" category.

Interesting about the aspirin - thanks for sharing. I may consider that too if she decides to go broody again next winter. Not again this winter, right, Gracie?