Trying to break broody Sugar

Sugar has now been broody for more than six weeks. I am starting to worry about her. Her comb has gone from red to a pale, slightly grey, colour. To look at her comb she looks like an unwell chicken.

Sugar isn’t eating anything but a few seeds. She has stopped doing the large broody poops that broody girls do. Sugar is losing condition. It is time to try to break her out of this.

As usual I have done a google search. I thought I already knew all there is to know about this but it never hurts to look again. I put “six weeks broody” in the search and it said that is too long to leave a broody girl. They will lose condition and possibly become too underweight. It said that it is kinder to break them than to let them lose condition with no reward of chicks at the end of it.

I have made my plan. I will close the nest boxes and the chicken shed in between girls needing to lay. When any of the girls need to lay I will put Sugar in the dog crate in the shed. I will also leave her in there over night.

I have taken up David’s idea of putting a perch in the crate. When I tried Sugar in the crate before she was flapping around and I was worried she would hurt herself. This time she has actually been using the perch.

The weird thing is that she has reverted to her previous behaviour. It seems that when the nest boxes are open she will sit in them all the time but when the nest boxes are closed she just wants to jump on me as soon as I open the gate. I have never come across this behaviour before. I have never had such a crazy girl before. I wonder why I have the craziest chicken!

I have to do a mix of closing the nest boxes and using the crate because Sugar refuses to eat anything while in the crate. I have put in the crate mash and sunflower hearts and apple and spinach and water and she refuses to touch anything.

Like when Salmon was poorly Sugar will only eat some treats when I put her on top of a nest box and drop treats in front of her. I got her to have some sunflower hearts and some bits of apple and spinach. She wouldn’t touch the mash. She wouldn’t take water in the crate but did have water when back in the run.

I am back to the thinking that it doesn’t matter what she eats as long as she eats something. When Smoke is broody she always eats when I take her out of the nest box but Sugar doesn’t unless I treat her like I did Salmon and hand feed her. I have read of committed broodies starving themselves and I can’t let that happen.

I will keep going with this for as long as it takes. I have to break her out of this because this is definitely not good for her health.

I was pleased to see that she perched in the crate like this at bedtime whereas in the chicken shed I couldn’t get her to perch. She would go floppy and drop down even when it was dark. This feels like a step forward already and will be better for her and more likely to break the pattern.

I will report back with how we progress. I am feeling a bit more optimistic now that I have started with a new regime.