A new chicken insight
May 7th, 20122 comments
My hen hasn't died since Thursday, so I'm reviewing her symptoms:
- She stopped laying
- She sleeps in the nesting box
- She stays in the nesting box all day unless I kick her out
- Her belly is de-feathered and red.
BUT:
- When I stick my finger up her bottom I find no stuck egg
- When I kick her off the nesting box she roams happily in the yard where she walks, pecks, and poops normally.
- She continues to be alive.
Insight:
Maybe she's broody!
I learn today on the internet this key piece of information: a broody hen will stop laying eggs, will sleep in the nesting box, and will PULL OUT HER OWN BELLY FEATHERS to line the nesting box and to get a better feel of the eggs under her.
If this is the case, then I have gone about things all wrong. I should be bathing her in cold water rather than hot, to get her temperature down. Also, I should start feeling like an idiot.
comments
wait, so she wants to have babies? is that what you mean? isn't that, um, impossible? I just don't know a thing. See, know you can feel smart because I don't even know what broody really means ;)
Yes, she wants to have babies, so she's sitting on non-fertile eggs in the hopes that they'll hatch. She can't have real babies because there's no rooster. The internet says that I can annoy the crap out of her until she stops, or she'll stop on her own in a few weeks.
Most brooding behavior has been bread out of laying hens because it's annoying... as you can see, it makes them stop laying, take up the nesting box, and make me worry and all.