Egg bound/broody or somehting else?

[KazzaL]

I have 3 hens (got them at the beg of July) and they have all been laying fine for a while now, but over the last few days one of them has been behaving a bit strange.

She's been refusing to come out of the hen house, staying in the nesting box, but until yesterday i was still getting 3 eggs a day. I kept going out and evicting her once I knew she had laid for the day and she would gobble up lots of food & water, but then head back inside.

Yesterday, no egg from her and she satyed in the nesting box apart from when I was cleaning out the house and then we evicted her a couple of times during the day as well.

We've had a bit of a redmite problem, but the house has been throughly cleaned with the steamer and I've treating all 3 hens with powder and all the bedding & straw every couple of days which seems to have worked and none of my ladies seem to have any on them.

Any ideas as to what could be wrong with my hen? Egg bound or broody or???

[bronze]

Sounds broody. Is she flattened in the nest box or does she make any aggressive noises at you when you move her. Not all broodys do this but if she was it would be definite.

[KazzaL]

Thanks bronze, I'm not really sure to be honest, I'll have a look when I get in tonight from work - do both/either of these suggest broodiness rather than anything else.

I know we've had a couple of days over the last week where for various reasons - ill DS, working late, forgetfulness & the weather; neither DH or I have gone out and collected the eggs till the next morning, so I am hoping its broodiness rather than egg-bound or anything else. If it is what can I do to snap her out of it?

[mummy5bellies]

Hi Kazzal, if you're hen is broody then you just have to let her snap out of it, they get quite stressed if you try and stop them. Do you know anyone with hens plus a cockerel to get fertilised eggs from? Might as well let her do what comes naturally and pop some under her

[KazzaL]

I think it was broodiness as she finally seems to have got over it and is now coming out of the house again over the last few days.....

any ideas on how long it will take her to start laying again?

[sylvev]

Hi
Glad your hen is getting over it. One of ours was broody for 3 weeks, eating very little, growling at other hens, us and anything, really! We had to stop her getting in the nest by putting her in a separate run, with food etc, until the other hens had laid. We then locked the chicken house, so she had to free range with the others.

She has been back to normal for over a week now, but still not laying. So I'd like to know also, how long it takes until they start laying again!

[KazzaL]

sylvev - DH just called me at wokr to tell me that I had 3 eggs today, so it doesn't seem to have taken that long for her to get back to laying once the broodiness had gone, but then he added that he's stood on the 3rd one and broke it as she'd laid it on the lawn!!

Hopes yours has started laying again