This time Sugar has laid only eleven eggs in thirteen days and gone broody again. She laid her last five eggs five days running. It seems that she is going to be another serial broody.
This time I decided that I would try to break her out straight away as I don’t want her sitting for another six weeks especially in this hot weather. The day before yesterday she laid mid afternoon and returned to the nest box. I lifted her out and closed the nest boxes.
At bedtime Sugar was settled in the corner of the chicken shed. I decided to take immediate action. I put Sugar in the dog crate overnight with food, water and a perch. Sugar settled on the perch.
I took this yesterday morning before letting her out. I closed the nest boxes and returned Sugar to the run. When it became clear that a few of the girls wanted to lay their egg I returned Sugar to the crate. Once the eggs were laid I returned Sugar to the run with the nest boxes closed once more.
I will keep up this regime over the next few days and hopefully it will only take about three nights. Sugar is already used to the perch and settles straight on to it each time I put her in here. I hope to break her out of this quickly without any stress as she seems to have adjusted to this regime.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
Good luck.
Thank you. I think it will be easier because she hasn’t had time to sit this time round and she isn’t sitting on top of the nest boxes. When I opened the crate this morning she launched herself from the perch to my shoulder and I took her into the run like a parrot on my shoulder.
She is – and is going to remain – persistent! You’re doing exactly what you can. Happy days!
It is a pain to find that she is going to be persistent but I am just happy that she isn’t aggressive and in fact is the easiest girl to handle.
Oh dear- she does look cute though in broody jail!! xx
She does like cute. It’s been three nights now so I may gradually start opening up and see what she does. xx