Chicken-n-Veg

Archive for July, 2010

Flora, one of our two Amber Lee hens has been broody for about 2 weeks. This is apparently not common for a hybrid hen, but she was also our only broody hen last year, when she was only about 28 weeks old. We were unable to break her broody cycle last year and have not had much more success this year. We have tried a number of things as recommended on the hen keeping forums we visit, but she is very persistent. On one of the days we shut her our of the nest box for the whole day. She spent all day pacing around, crowing loudly and as soon as we opened the henhouse up in the evening she jumped straight back onto her "nest" (even though there are no eggs there). Due to the loud crowing (we don’t want to fall out with our neighbours) and its lack of success, we probably won’t try this again.

Her behaviour is certainly disruptive. She fluffs up and starts pecking anything that disturbs her. The other hens have stopped laying in the nest boxes and have made alternative nests in a large Pampas grass plant. The combination of the broody hen and several hens that have started moulting means that we are currently only getting 2-3 eggs a day from our seven hens. Hopefully this picks up soon as we can more than keep up with this paltry (or should that be poultry !) amount.