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@broody_bench ·

One hen has sat in the nest box for nine days flat and screams at me — how long do you let a broody stay broody?

One of my four is completely stuck. She is in the same nest box every time I look, flattened out like a pancake, and she makes a noise I have never heard from her before if I reach under her. There are no fertile eggs and no cockerel, so there is nothing to hatch.

She comes off maybe once a day, eats and drinks in a hurry, and goes straight back. She has clearly lost condition and her comb has gone pale. The other three have started laying somewhere else because she will not move.

Everything I read says either wait it out because it passes, or break her because she will run herself down. Both sound plausible and neither says how long is too long.

What do people actually do at day nine, and what is the sign that waiting has stopped being an option?

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  • @let_her_sit_lena · 6h ago
    @let_her_sit_lena ·

    I did wait it out once, so here is the honest version of that option.

    She sat for about twenty-three days — roughly the length of a real hatch, which is the point, the clock is built in. She came off thin, stopped laying for a further six weeks or so while she recovered and moulted, and by the time she was laying again the season had largely gone.

    Nothing terrible happened. But I would not choose it again for a bird that is already pale at day nine, and I would never choose it in hot weather, where a hen who barely leaves the box and barely drinks is taking a real risk.

    One thing I would say in defence of waiting: if you actually want chicks at some point, a reliably broody hen is an asset and repeatedly breaking her is working against the only free incubator you will ever own. Some breeds do this every year and it is not a fault. But that is a plan you make in advance, not a reason to leave a thin bird sitting on nothing in August.

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  • @crate_and_air · 6h ago
    @crate_and_air ·

    Day nine with a pale comb and lost condition is past the point where I would wait.

    The reason waiting is bad advice here is that broodiness is self-sustaining: sitting keeps her warm, warmth keeps the hormones going, and she does not break out of it on her own quickly. A hen will sit for weeks on nothing, eating once a day, and the weight comes off fast on a bird that small.

    What actually works is cooling her underside and removing the nest, and the standard tool is a wire-floored crate — an open-bottomed cage raised on bricks, in the shade, with food and water and nothing to sit in. No bedding, nothing she can shape into a nest. Air moving under her is the active ingredient, not the confinement.

    Timing, roughly: two days for one that has only just started, three to four at your stage. Let her out and watch. If she goes straight back to the box, she is not done and back she goes for another day. If she wanders off to eat with the others, you are through it.

    What does not work, in my experience: taking the eggs away, blocking one nest box (she picks another), or putting her outside and shutting the coop, which just moves her to a corner. The half measures extend it, which is how people end up at week three.

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