Broody loves company.

When I think about how long and hard I considered every minute detail when designing my coop, I'm always pleased I decided to put more than one nest box in. Researching through countless poultry books and on chicken forums, discovering recommended hen to nest box ratios.

I would hate to think of them having to cram into just one...

...sigh...


Turfing them out and locking the door so they could enjoy the rare spring sunshine wasn't entirely successful either.

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Breaking Broodiness!

At last, I have discovered a system to stop my broodies in their tracks!

My secret weapons are these:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

My plan was to keep the offending hen away from the coop & nest boxes at all costs.  Exhibit A is for daytime, Exhibit B for night time in the house.  Their annoyance at being contained in such a manner ensures broodiness is quite quickly forgotten.  Four days in the anti-broody pens seems to do the trick.

I'm very pleased not to have to suffer four weeks plus of a grumpy nest-hogger! :D

.....

Brick's chicks!

Brick's a Momma!

We are all over the moon to see the pictures, those chicks are gorgeous!

                                 

Thomas has sent pictures of the happy event, she looks so happy, if not a little shell-shocked.  The sudden arrival of Motherhood to 12 has got to be a shock to the system.

I'm finally pleased I made the difficult decision to let her go.

.....

There ain't nobody here but us chickens.

I looked out of the kitchen window and wondered why the girls were huddled together on just one chair.


What were they doing, and more importantly, what were they watching?  Whatever it was, they didn't look at all happy about it!

And then I remembered.


I'd arrived home and forced Mabel outside for a breath of fresh air.

Yup, she's one scary broody!

.....

Times a changing...continued.

A friend I met though chickens was looking for a broody and he was interested in offering Brick a new home.


He hatches out a lot of eggs and she would have as many eggs as she could fit under that fluffy butt as often as she was broody, which looked like it was going to be very often.
Brick desperately wanted to be a Mommy, she looked so very sad spending weeks on end in the nest box, so for her it was ideal but I hesitated.  I find it very hard to part with any animals.


It took a lot of discussion and soul searching to make that final decision but sometimes you just have to do the right thing and as with Reggie, sometimes the right thing is hard.  


I was very kindly given two POL (point of lay) Pekin hens, I'll introduce you to them later.


I dearly hope Brick is happy, I know at the moment she has seven Pekin eggs to smother with love.  Thomas has said he will send me a picture of her with her babies.


I can't wait to see them.

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Broodiness...

...what a total joy this is!


Brick has been in lay for just over 4 months.  Half of that time she has been broody, and she is a VERY determined broody.  We're talking Mother of the Year award level broodiness here.  


Sadly for her, I cannot offer her the opportunity to have chicks.  I no longer have a cockerel and I'm certainly not prepared to run the gauntlet of purchasing fertile eggs for her to sit on.  I would undoubtedly end up with six cockerels!  


So I have one very broody and increasingly sad looking hen, doing her utmost to hatch out the little plastic egg I have given her. The daily battle of her acquiring everyone else's eggs and then me reacquiring them off her, was not a suitable arrangement for either of us.  So plastic broody eggs were promptly purchased.

Brick being 'Mother of the Year' while Mabel faffs about in the other nest box.

And then there's Mabel...




If there was social services for chickens, she'd be top of their hit list.


Mabel's outlook on broodiness differs somewhat to that of Brick's.  It mainly involves stomping around the garden for most of the day whilst having a jolly good moan.  Then, two hours before roost time, she retires to a nest box, fluffs herself out and announces to all that she is actually broody, in case you had been fortunate enough to miss the day's ooooooo-ing and aaaaaa-hing all over the garden.




Suffering her friends broodiness with dignity and grace as always, is Betty.
Not one to miss an opportunity, Bet has decided to take full advantage of the current situation.






See if you can spot the recurring feature in these photos...

A shot of the conservatory.

My husband in the living room.

My daughter watching television.

My stepson texting on the sofa.

Me using my laptop.

Yes, I do believe full advantage of the situation is being well & truly taken!

.....