Can 2 broodies affect flock behavior?

[PhantomSlayer]

Its day 17 for one broody and the other is on day 15. 1 roo and 8 hens(6 if you don't count the broodies). 2 Black Australorp broodies seperated behind a divider so other hens aren't causing issues with the nests and eggs. For the past week I've noticed the flock staying inside the coop alot more often. Today I went to let our geese out to free range and as I was walking past I heard what sounded similar to a purring sound. It continued as I went to the geese and let them out. I checked on the broodies and it wasn't them. I went inside the run where the rest of the flock were. And they were all just chilling. And then I heard it from our friendliest girl Rosemary who is a buff orpington. I've heard short purring sounds when the girls are in the boxes. But never when they were out in the run and it was pretty constant. I continued watching and she suddenly got up and went to the coop door. I didn't stick around cause I wasn't wearing a jacket and its a bit chilly today.

The last egg we got was 4 days ago from our EE. Rosemary is a sweet girl and shes shown mothering instinct as a pullet with our geese when they were goslings. Could it be the broodies or the molting causing the weird behavior of them spending more time in the coop and now the weird purring. Their health seems fine aside from the molting. Or could it be a mixture of molt and broodies causing the odd behavior? Or is Rosemary just being weird lol. She does this weird beak rub against my pants. Most often when I'm wearing the basketball shorts with the mesh fabric that have the holey texture. She sometimes tries jumping up on my leg or shoulder if I'm crouched as well. Shes a weirdo so its not impossible for her to be even more weird.

Rosemary has never gone broody. The only two to noticeably go broody is the 2 current broodies.

 

[Debbie292d]

Having silkies here, I've almost always had a broodie and many times, multiple ones at once, and never seen anything different from the other chickens.

Rosemary sounds like a very sweet loving chicken who wants a little attention from you it seems.

That's a neat idea you have to separate the broodies from the layers. That way they can't lay on the broodies nests as they do here. I have to get eggs 2X day to make sure they aren't getting cooked out there.

Mine will spend more time in the coop when one hen gets dramatic after laying her egg. They call that a song, but to me it's a whole bunch of racket and they all go running in to see.

 

[PhantomSlayer]

Having silkies here, I've almost always had a broodie and many times, multiple ones at once, and never seen anything different from the other chickens.

Rosemary sounds like a very sweet loving chicken who wants a little attention from you it seems.

That's a neat idea you have to separate the broodies from the layers. That way they can't lay on the broodies nests as they do here. I have to get eggs 2X day to make sure they aren't getting cooked out there.

Mine will spend more time in the coop when one hen gets dramatic after laying her egg. They call that a song, but to me it's a whole bunch of racket and they all go running in to see.

None of ours are silkies and yet one of the broody Black Australorps has been broody 3 times this year.

Rosemary is our sweetest girl lol I doubt when the chicks join the flock Rosemary will be any threat. She might even help the mama's lol. Shes been like this since she was a chick. It would be awesome if we got some of her babies. It's impossible to tell though. Out of 8 hens 7 lay brown lol. Our EE is our only colored layer. She does a greenish/blue.

The rest of the girls kept fighting and kicking the broodies out and I wanted our nicer broody to have the eggs of our EE Goldy cause she has an awful personality but pretty looks. She acts like were gonna kill her if were within 5 feet of her lol.

I looked up the idea of a barrier but still having visual of the flock this spring when I was battling with our goose trying steal the goose eggs under a broody hen. Our goose wasn't even broody XD she wouldn't commit.

I also wanted to avoid new eggs being added to the nest if they were to far along. I did have an issue with Nox breaking a few eggs under her each had 13 but I got that cleaned up and rebedded when I attempted to candle eggs at day 13. Nox had 9 when I candled.

I made a rookie mistake and didn't seperate the eggs that didn't look good so they all ended up back under the broodies lol I didn't mark them in a way to know which egg is which. I just marked them to know which broody was on them lol

I don't know why their spending so much time inside but when I go out its usually 2-4 of them right next to the broody barrier.