One little hen has gone broody. All she wants to do is sit, preferably on eggs. She is lighter than a feather, having stopped eating much, as a hen sitting on eggs would have to do to keep them warm and protected. We remove all the eggs from the colony house several times a day, so she is mostly sitting alone in an empty nest box. In the evening we take her out, set her on the roosts with the other hens, and she scolds, expresses displeasure and dissatisfaction and quickly hops down and re-seats herself in the nest box. It would be interesting to know what has inspired this stubborn will in her. Weather? Season? Roosters? We are told that the only cure for this condition is to change her location completely, so she will begin to eat normally (and will resume laying eggs!)
Broody girl
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March 5, 2010 at 4:36 pm |
I never connected the verb “brood” — which I usually associate with a moody human being who keeps thinking about something — with a hen and her nest and her eggs.
Somehow I feel immediate empathy for this particular chicken.
Maybe a complete change of location would do me good, too.