Is my chicken sick or just broody?

[janneluecke]

the most effective way I found is put them in an isolation pen, that is screened on the top, bottom and all four sides, on legs about 12 to 18 inches off of the ground. This will create ventilation and cooling, cause there body temperature to decrease. it usually takes 3 days but some of mine have taken 7 days in the pen to correct. The problem is when their body goes into the state to hatch eggs, which is a natural occurrence, weather there is rooster present or not, their body temperature goes up to incubate the egg. A chicken that has been broody for several days or longer will eventually start plucking feathers out of their belly area to make better body contact with the egg to transfer more heat to the egg. By bring their body temperature down they will come out of the brooding state. I was told giving them a bath in cool water does they same thing, but I had absolutely no success with that idea.

I tried the bath thing last night and did not get immediate success, either. I hope I don't have to go to the extreme of isolation but I can see how that would lower the body temp. I'll keep trying cool baths and blocking her access to the coop and see what happens. Thanks

 

[EveCh]

I've never had great luck breaking mine but I have broodier types. I just give them eggs and save myself the headache. The bath several times a day worked for my grandmother but I thought a rabbit cage ie open for air on the bottom seemed less hassle/stress and more effective. Good luck!

 

[21hens-incharge]

The cool bath is cruel and stressful in my opinion.
Removing her from the ability to sit on a nest is more effective. The wire bottom cage 24-7 is most effective.
It may take a week in the cage to break them.

It won't matter how many cold dunkings you give if she can go back to a nest.

 

[aart]

My experience went like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop and I would feed her some crumble a couple times a day.

I let her out a couple times a day(you don't have to) and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two.

Water nipple bottle added after pic was taken.