As I suspected in my last post, Gold was about to go broody. Gold had laid nine eggs in twelve days. We had one day of five girls laying before Gold went broody. As usual Gold wasn’t committed and after a couple of days of me lifting her out of the nest box each time I went in she gave up.
Gold has had a break of five days and usually has a break of seven days so I am expecting her to start laying again in a couple of days time.
A few days later Storm, Mango and Cloud all went broody together. This has left us with only Dot laying at the moment. Thank goodness Dot never goes broody.
Storm has laid seventeen eggs in twenty seven days. Mango has laid nineteen eggs in thirty three days. But here’s the thing, Cloud has only laid four eggs in six days. It feels like Cloud is just broody because Mango is.
From the minute Mango started sitting in the nest box all puffed up Cloud was right next her and they have been inseparable ever since. I lift them both out and they both go to food or water or a dust bath together and they return to the nest box together.
Storm sits in the chicken shed and returns there after I lift her out for a break. I can’t quite believe that all three game girls are broody at the same time.
Yesterday Dot was the only girl to lay. This morning I closed all the nest boxes and blocked the pop hole to the chicken shed. As Dot laid yesterday afternoon I knew no girl would need to lay and it would be best to try and break the game girls out of this before Gold starts laying again and the nest boxes would be needed.
Storm is a bit more determined than usual because whereas she would usually perch at bedtime she was sitting in the corner of the chicken shed last night. I lifted her to the perch and she stayed there.
The sooner I can break the girls out of this the better or the abundance of eggs we were getting will slow right down. The game girls usually take a two week break so it shouldn’t be long until we are getting plenty of eggs again.
It’s just unfortunate that they all went broody together but hopefully it won’t last long.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
They are so persistent, but at least don’t seem to be aggressive. It takes so little to deplete the egg count, unfortunately, but Dot seems reliable. Lovely photo of broodies together! Still none here, despite 4 pekins and a light sussex who spent much of last spring and summer broody.
They are so docile luckily. I opened up again, this afternoon in case Dot needed to lay as she does sometimes lay two days running. I left the pop hole closed so Storm hasn’t gone in but Mango and Cloud went straight back in together. Next time I checked they were sitting on Dot’s egg so I have turfed them out and closed the nest boxes again. It’s sod’s law that I have them and you don’t this year when you could have done with them.
I spoke too soon. At last a broody: a brown leghorn!!!
Oh, how funny!
very nice pictures of your broody girls.
They look very sweet but it’s annoying because they egg each other on and so are more determined than usual.