Posts Tagged do hens need a rooster to lay?

Sweetpea ruffles her neck feathers. She's not amused at being disturbed in the nestbox.

We are putting buckets in the nest at 4:00 p.m. each day after the hens have finished laying their eggs. After 21 days of “setting” we want Poppy to get back to roosting on the roosts with the others and stop being “broody”.

We used to call them “setting” hens when I was a girl. Today we refer to them as “broody”. Both terms refer to a hen that sits on a nest….. day after day after day. It works like this. Whether or not you have a rooster, a hen will lay a certain amount of eggs in her lifetime. Some breeds lay more, some less. If you have a rooster, the eggs will be fertile and if given the right conditions, will hatch into baby chicks. This is beginning to sound like Sex 101, isn’t it?

In their natural state, hens with a virile rooster will lay a clutch of eggs, then begin “setting” on them. In 21 days, if the eggs have been kept warm, they will hatch and the hen will protect them and show the chicks the ropes for their first month of their  lives.

Alas, as you know, we don’t have a rooster because they crow and might disturb neighbors. Our hens have never “known” a rooster (in the biblical sense) and don’t seem to miss one. Their eggs are just as healthy as fertile eggs, but will not hatch. Two of them have desperately tried to hatch eggs; their own and those of their flock mates. Sweetpea was the first to become “broody”. We took her off the nest several times a day to eat and drink. We also took her off the nest each night (when she couldn’t see in the dark and couldn’t return to the nest) and put her up on the roost with the other hens. In the late afternoons, when we were sure the hens had finished laying their eggs, we closed the door to the henhouse so she couldn’t get back into the nest boxes.

Poppy lets Petunia into the nestbox to lay an egg. Then Poppy will try to hatch it.

Hormones cause the hens to be “broody”. During this period of time, their temperature increases and they pull the feathers from their chests so their bare skin can “get down” on the eggs and keep them warm. By removing the hen from the nest, and putting her on the roost at night, we are hoping to decrease her temperature and break her “broodiness”. So far, nothing has worked with Poppy and there she sits. Day 15!

There is a drastic measure to break broodiness which we haven’t been able to summon the courage to try. That is to put the hen in a wire cage so that she can’t nest and her temperature will drop. It is referred to as “Broody Jail”. Supposedly it cures the hen in less than a week. I’m afraid poor Poppy, who has never experienced wire under her feet, and is a bit “anxious” by nature, would be traumatized. Then again, it would be a great relief to get her back to laying eggs, scratching in the dirt, and roosting alongside her sisters again.