Broody Hen Considerations

My understanding is that a hen may go 'broody' where the hen instinctually tries to incubate hatch eggs.

Chickens breeds can help indicate if hens tend to go broody or not. For example, my Buff Orpington 'Betty' is known for broodiness.

This is my first time dealing with a broody hen so I am very green with this.

I currently evict 'Betty' from the nesting boxes in the afternoon to get some free-range time. Besides fluffing up and clucking at me, she starts to eat/drink/forage and act normal.

Is broodiness something that should be discouraged? How would you go about doing that?

Thank you in advance for your replies.

Hi Timothy,
I am far from an expert, but I have dealt with them a bit. I think the only time to encourage broody-ness is if you want her to hatch eggs. Otherwise, it is good to get past it as quickly as possible. The only things I did to discourage them (because I only had spots for 5 broody hens, and I had 8 that wanted to), was to move them off the nest, take their eggs, and move the nesting boxes around. Trying to make it inhospitable. I have heard that dipping a broody hen so that her breasts are in cold water for a little while can snap them out of it. I have not tried this method.

My hens like to sit on their eggs; the kids just shove them out of the way to take their eggs and the chickens seem to go about their day doing chicken stuff. Is there anything "bad" or "wrong" about a hen being broody? Is it a problem that needs to be corrected for some reason?

When a hen is broody, they do not lay eggs, and they eat and drink a lot less. Because of this, I highly recommend either letting her sit on eggs, or do what you can to break the cycle. I don't think letting a hen stay broody without the fulfillment of hatching chicks is good for the chicken. Nor is it good to have laying chickens who are not laying. If the chickens are your pets... its a little different. But if you have chickens for laying eggs... and they are not laying eggs, then that can be a problem.

I currently have 4 hens that are broody and I’m missing getting more eggs, so I plan to try to break them out of it. I have heard of 2 suggestions on this front: put them into a separate area with no eggs or nesting boxes, or dunking them in cold water to lower their temperature. I don’t currently have a separate area; it’s on my to-do list. Dunking them seems “mean” but on the other hand it’s over 100 degrees this week so maybe it’s time to try it!

I’ve previously always let the hens do whatever they want, but 4 broodies at once, for a long time, has hit my limit!

Matt McSpadden wrote:When a hen is broody, they do not lay eggs, and they eat and drink a lot less. Because of this, I highly recommend either letting her sit on eggs, or do what you can to break the cycle. I don't think letting a hen stay broody without the fulfillment of hatching chicks is good for the chicken. Nor is it good to have laying chickens who are not laying. If the chickens are your pets... its a little different. But if you have chickens for laying eggs... and they are not laying eggs, then that can be a problem.

Interesting. I'm still getting about 8 eggs a day from 9 chickens, so maybe mine aren't really "broody", they're just sitting around being lazy.

I could see the 'cold' dunk method being a convenient time to use Epsom salt and clean up any dirty feet/body the hen might have.

I too think its a bit 'mean' but I understand the reasons behind it. I'm just a softie haha. I personally have never been a fan of an unexpected cold plunge!

I'm not saying that a dunk in cold water is pleasant, but which would be more "mean"? A dunk in cold water and then its over, or letting her expand all that energy for weeks and not hatch any eggs?

They’re not laying eggs and all they do is sit on the nest… how much energy are they expending? 🤔

Juniper Zen wrote:They’re not laying eggs and all they do is sit on the nest… how much energy are they expending? 🤔

Well, of course they are not running around to use energy that way :)

I just mean all the hormonal changes going on, the fact that they will eat and drink a lot less. It takes time and energy to recover from that.

Matt, you bring up a good perspective! Thank you for that sincerely.

The hens are trying an exercise in futility which is fueled by hormones. We are all chicken tenders and sometimes have to do things for the overall wellbeing of our flock that the ladies aren't the biggest fan of.

I do have to say, broody poops are the worst. You don't want to accidently step on one because it will wipe you out! Not that I have any experience on that matter or anything...

I dunked my five (thought it was four, but actually five!) broody hens into a bucket of cold water, up to their shoulders, yesterday in the late afternoon and again this morning. This evening all five were back on the nesting boxes.

They’ve gotten more tolerant of me reaching under them to pull out eggs over time, because I usually don’t bother them much. I don’t want to risk making them aggressive because now I keep dunking them every time I open the nest boxes. I’m going to stop doing that, and try to find time to build a nestless, eggless broody-breaking pen.

Broody Hen Update.

After snatching her off the nest and putting her into the pasture once, anytime I approached her in a nesting box she would get up and wander away before I could get to her.

Today is the second day that she has not been broody. She is back out with the flock running all about.

I started collecting eggs twice a day instead of once, I think that was the trick. I have the convenience of time so I couldn't imagine having to manage a large flock with multiple broody hens!

Juniper Zen wrote:I dunked my five (thought it was four, but actually five!) broody hens into a bucket of cold water, up to their shoulders, yesterday in the late afternoon and again this morning. This evening all five were back on the nesting boxes.

I’ve been meaning for months to return to this thread and give an update. As I posted earlier, I had dunked the five broody hens in cold water twice, on consecutive days, then I had stopped because they were getting scared of me. They were still sitting in their boxes for the next couple days, and I had deemed this a failure… but by the third or fourth day after, I was no longer catching them sitting. So either it really did work, just with the results taking a few days to manifest (and it makes sense that their bodies wouldn’t be able to switch gears immediately), or they were running off when they heard me coming (possible, but I would have expected them to not still be sitting that evening or the day after), or it was a massive coincidence (possible, but unlikely).

I think that if I once again have several hens brooding at once next year, I will try it again (for science!), but if it’s the normal just 1-2 hens at once, I’ll let them be.

I had another hen go broody. This hen, an australorp, is absolutely refusing taking no for an answer.

So who am I to stop her?

Say hello to Mama and the peeps!

An australorp hen looks after a mixture of chicks inside of a coop.

Long story short, we had the opportunity to get our hands on some bantam chicks. We brought them home and proceeded to stuff them under Mama. She started to happy cluck and we checked in a few hours later with success. This morning, we had a check in and found the little family doing wonderful!

I love my little life.

Timothy Norton wrote:I had another hen go broody. This hen, an australorp, is absolutely refusing taking no for an answer.

I love my little life.

And I thought australorps never get broody
Congratulations with your new chickenfamily!

I just said this to myself this morning! "I love my little life" with such weight it felt very, very solid and permanent Maybe it's something in the air, the deep, sweet content <3

Nina Surya wrote: And I thought australorps never get broody

I never say never where broodies are concerned.

Hubby has some industrial chickens for his egg business and we have had them go broody. Some years none, some just one, and at least 1 year when 2 did. It might be triggered by weather conditions, but it hasn't happened often enough for any serious cause/effect to be focused on.

Timothy Norton wrote:So who am I to stop her?

This is very much my attitude.

1. Yes, to go this route, you *must* be willing to deal with roosters, but they taste just fine, even if they're much smaller than a meat breed bird.

2. Yes, the tale that roundier eggs are more likely to be female than the pointier eggs seems to improve the odds, but I haven't found it to be any sort of guarantee.

3. Yes, I have found that birds that go repeatedly broody, tend to return to a longer laying period after having a clutch of eggs, than birds where one is constantly 'breaking brood'. Also, there are farm situations which are better set up for "broodies", so if you can't allow chicks and moms, consider rehoming a repeater.

4. Yes, in my system, I need to be able to provide protective custody for the sitting hen, and for the chicks at least for a few days of "bond with mom" time. I know others are able to integrate based on their set-ups in shorter or longer periods. Aggressive hens will "steal" babies, but then, sometimes with my ducks, groups will all get mixed up for a while, only to get themselves sorted out by bedtime!

I am quite concerned that we're loosing broodiness in many of our bird populations. This means we become totally dependent on industrial infrastructure, incubators, etc. If you're a small homestead and are in a position to help reverse this trend, I salute you!

This is all interesting to me since (when we raised chickens) our goal was, in part, to generate ongoing replacement hens for the flock. Our problem was that broodiness in modern breeds doesn’t last long enough! It got going, but always petered out before the eggs hatched.

So the first year that we needed replacements we bought peeps and raised them in the garage. It worked, sort of. We got our hens, but also got enough dust to swear us off ever raising peeps indoors again. (We cleaned peep dust for months.)

My next solution was to keep a couple or three bantam breed hens that reliably go broody and stay that way for the duration. I built a tiny “peep barn” and put a good fence around it to keep predators out and product in. Then we collected fertile eggs from the “standard” chickens, and let a broody bantam sit on them in the little barn. The bantam did her natural thing, hatching the eggs, and then mothering the chicks. There was not as much survival using bantam mothers as heat lamps and feeders, but more than enough to replace older, spent hens, and to tell the truth, it was comforting, even uplifting, to watch the whole thing unfold.

I wish I could share a picture of a typical bantam hen with her babies… all I can come up with is a shot of the peep barn, attached.

Backyard chicken keeper here...can have only 9 hens and no roosters per city code.  We have one Buff that goes broody.  She's 2 years old.  First went broody at six months...had only just started laying.  Put day-old chicks (3) under her after she'd been broody for about 2 weeks (thats when the chicks were available at the feed store).  She instantly perked up "My chicks have hatched!"  She raised those babies beautifully and integrated them into the flock.  Soooo much easier than our previous method of raising day-olds in a brood box in the house.  The integration step was the worst.  Second time she went broody we were maxed out with chickens per city code so we let her be broody just to see what would happen.  She sat like a flat pancake in that nest box for 2 months.  She was definitely skinnier when she decided she was done being broody.  Third time she went broody we put day-old meat chicks (3) under her.  She raised those babies beautifully but I must say those birds ran her ragged.  She's always fed her babies first, a special call of "I found something good, come and get it!"  Fourth time she went broody was one year from the first time she went broody.  We had room for some new birds and a friend had fertilized eggs.  We put four under her and one hatched.   She raised that one beautifully, but that one grew and grew and grew and then crowed....so he went back to my friend.  Now one of the benefits of having this broody hen is that when she is not broody, or feeding babies, she is laying eggs.  So she kept us in eggs last winter when every other bird had stopped laying!  She went broody again this spring and we put 3 day-old chicks under her.  She's raised them beautifully and is mostly over caring for them and has started laying eggs again.  LOVE our broody hen!

If you want her to hatch chicks, go ahead and let her. If you don't, though, it is kinder to dissuade her, gently if you can.
When she is sitting, she is not drinking or eating enough to sustain herself. She gets off the nest to poop, drink and take a bite, but within 20 minutes, she is back sitting on eggs. This can go on for 21 days, which is the normal cycle, but if she is thwarted, it can go on for much longer and that is at the detriment of her health. She will go skinny and may become ill.
She is also not laying eggs, if that counts. If you can move her nest, that may work, but she is likely to make a nest elsewhere.
Putting her in a cage where she cannot get on the other hens' eggs can sometimes work.
At the base of her broodiness, though, is an elevated temperature than enables her to keep the eggs warm. Finding a way to lower her temperature will usually do the trick.
If she can be safe outside overnight, like a safe paddock, you could isolate her that way. You can also dunk her in cold water, keeping her head above at all times. Pick her up and take her where you will do the dunking,[away from her roo!] Grab her gently by the wings and lower her in the water. She will fight you, but you must keep her mostly submerged [with just her head out, for a good 3-4 minutes. The idea is to lower her core temperature. Most people don't like to do that: Sometimes, it has to be repeated because she didn't chill enough. I suppose a box with a bag of ice cubes, , water and food could work too, but you would have to monitor her carefully.
We hate to hurt our birds in any way, and when she protests [the expression "mad as a wet hen" probably comes from this practice] we feel that we are hurting her. We are not, really, but it is not pleasant for her, and she probably think that you are trying to drown her. She won't hold a grudge, though, and she will be nice the next day. Just make sure the rooster doesn't see you doing that to *his* girl. They can hold a grudge!