How to Stop a Hen from Being Broody
by Alexa Lehr | The Pioneer Chicks | June 20, 2023
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What causes your friendly, mischievous hen to turn into a lion in the nesting box!? Broodiness. A hen who has gone broody can be utterly vicious no matter how friendly she was a few days ago. Broodiness can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on what angle you want to look at it from. Learning how to stop a hen from being broody is essential for keeping a healthy, productive homestead flock. While broody hens are excellent to have on the homestead for naturally raising chicks, sometimes the hens don’t always go broody at the most convenient times. I’ll share some of the tips I have learned for discouraging a broody hen… whether she is stubborn and persistent or easy to convince that broodiness isn’t a good idea right now!

What is a Broody Hen?

If you are new to raising a homestead flock, and even if you aren’t, you may be wondering what exactly is a broody hen? Broody is the term we use to refer to a hen who wants to set on a clutch of eggs to hatch them. This natural instinct would be called brooding, and the hen who decides she wants to brood is called a broody hen.

Natural Instinct….

This instinct of brooding is natural and an essential part of the poultry reproduction cycle. In the wild, a hen would not lay an egg every day. Instead, come breeding season (usually in the spring), a hen would start laying an egg a day for a few days in a row until she had a clutch of eggs. Then she would stop laying, go broody, hatch her clutch (the eggs), and take care of her brood (the chicks). Depending on the bird, some wild bird’s repeat this process several times throughout the spring and summer.

Domestication….

However, once chickens became domesticated, the value of productivity was more important than the natural instinct to brood. Many modern day chicken breeds do not have a strong instinct to brood since that trait has been bred out of their breed for generations. You will rarely find a leghorn, Isa Brown, or sex-link hen going broody every spring.

Thankfully, there are still some breeds who have not lost the broody trait. Breeds such as the Orpington, Silkie, Svart Hona, and Cochin are known to have individuals who love to be mothers! If you are a homesteader who likes to replenish your flock naturally, having a hen or two who loves to brood can prove very valuable every spring.

There are factors that trigger hens to be broody. Breed, weather, light, and circumstances can all play a role in triggering a hen to go broody. I have found that warm weather is one of the biggest triggers for making my Svart Hona hens go broody. Here are some other factors that can cause a hen to go broody.

Broody Hen Triggers:

• warm weather
• longer daylight hours
• other hens being broody
• lots of eggs in the nesting boxes
• dark, secluded nesting places

Once a hen has selected a spot and created a nest, she will then lay her clutch of eggs. The pituitary gland, the same one that senses light to trigger laying, then releases the hormone prolactin which stops laying for broodiness. Once that hormone is released, the hen gets down to brooding her clutch.

A good broody hen will religiously sit on her clutch of eggs for the entire incubation process. Only leaving the nest to get a bite to eat, some water, and release a huge, stinky broody poop. She takes care of turning the eggs and regulates the temperature and humidity using her body heat and the moisture from her skin. Once the eggs hatch, she takes on the role of mother and teacher. Raising her chicks and teaching them what to eat, where to sleep, how to dust bath, and other important chicken life skills.

How to Tell if a Hen is Broody

So, how can you tell if a hen is broody? It’s pretty easy and straight-forward. Unlike trying to diagnose a chicken illness, broodiness has symptoms that distinctly point to broodiness. If your hen is exhibiting these characteristics, then you have a broody hen on your hands:

Signs of a Broody Hen

• hisses, snarls, and/or screams at you when she is in the nesting box– this can also be a trait of some hens who are not broody, but are just protective when they are laying their egg
• rarely leaves the nesting box– mother hens look for a dark, secluded, protected place to brood their clutch
• flattened appearance– a broody hen will often look flat as she spreads herself out to cover her nest
• despite being in the nesting box, she has not laid any eggs– a broody hen will stop laying eggs
• when you remove her from the nesting box, she fluffs up her feathers and just sits on the floor– a broody hen will try to keep you away from her nest by snarling, pecking, and fluffing up her feathers
• the hen has missing feathers on her breast– this is called a broody patch since a broody hen will pluck her breast feathers to line her nest with
• when she does leave the nesting box, she lets off a large, stinky dropping– this is called a broody poop since a broody hen will hold in her poop until she is away from her nest
• when she is out of the nesting box she will cluck and throw litter on her back– these are instincts of making a nest and the clucks are warnings to other birds to stay away

Aside from the daily task of laying an egg, a hen may also seek refuge in a nesting box due to being bullied or feeling ill. However, a broody hen can be well distinguished based on her attitude!

Welcome to the broody club! Now you have decide whether you want to let her stay broody or if you don’t want to break her of her broodiness.

Why Break a Broody Hen?

Breaking a broody hen is what you have to do if you don’t want your hen to be broody. But don’t worry, breaking a broody hen is not as bad as it sounds! Broody hens are extremely helpful on the homestead during the spring and hatching season, however, there are several reasons why you may choose to break a hen of broodiness.

Reasons to Break a Broody Hen:

• No Eggs– There are no fertile eggs, so she couldn’t hatch out chicks.
• Timing– The timing is wrong. Sometimes hens will go broody in the dead of winter!
• Brooding Space- You don’t have an adequate brooding area for the hen to set on and hatch her clutch of eggs.
• Flock Size– Your coop can’t hold any more chickens, so if the hen did hatch out chicks you would have to get rid of them.
• Broody Bug– Broodiness is contagious, so if you don’t want your other hens catching the broody bug, then you better take care of the issue while it’s manageable with one hen!
• Inconvenient– A broody hen is not needed at the time and you want her to start laying eggs again.

Once you’ve decided that you don’t need a broody hen, then its time to get on the task of breaking her of her broodiness. The sooner she can get back to eating and drinking at a normal rate, the better off she will be.

You shouldn’t let a hen remain broody if you are not going to let her set on a clutch of eggs to hatch chicks. This is especially important if the hen goes broody during the winter or during cold weather. Broodiness uses up lots of energy resources that are not replenished because a hen significantly decreases her food and water intake while being devoted to the nest. A broody hen can loose up to a third of her body weight when brooding.

For the health of then hen, you will want to discourage her from being broody and break her of her broodiness.

3 Ways to Stop a Hen from Being Broody

Over the years, I have had numerous broody hens and have had to break them for each of the reasons listed above. Breaking a broody hen takes a little bit of time and patience on your part, and some hens are easier to break than others. Here are the three methods I have used to break broody hens of varying degrees of broodiness.

#1. Daytime Quarantine- for mild broodiness

Some hens just need a little convincing that they actually don’t really want to be broody. Breaking a broody hen using the daytime quarantine method can be effective for broody hens who are in the early stages of being broody or who are first time broody hens.

Here’s how it works:

Set up a quarantine pen, preferably in close proximity to the current flock. The quarantine pen should have food, water, be sheltered from weather elements, and be predator proof. It should also not have any ‘comfy spots’ where a hen could make a nest. I like to set up a quarantine pen within my flock’s predator proof enclosure.

Once a quarantine pen has been set up, you can put the broody in the pen during the day, but put her on the roost with the rest of the flock at night. Keeping her out of the box during the day may be all she needs to discourage her from being broody.

#2. Blocking Access- only under certain circumstances

This can be a handy trick for breaking a broody hen who has chosen to nest in a spot other than a nesting box. For example, I had a hen who went broody on my coop’s droppings board.

To make this method work, you have to block off the spot where the hen wants to make her nest. For my droppings board broody, I simply had to place a large scoop filled with sand in the spot that she wanted to nest. She couldn’t move the scoop and it was too big to set on, and she was too stubborn to nest in the nesting box, so she decided not to be broody.

However, if your hen has decided that she wants to brood in a nesting box and is stubbornly persistent about it (daytime quarantine isn’t working) then it’s time to move on to the broody breaker method. You don’t want to block off the nesting boxes during the day since the other hens in the flock will still need to lay.

#3. Broody Breaker- for severe broodiness

A broody breaker is a pen that you can keep the broody hen in until she stops being broody. Besides having food, water, shelter, and protection, a broody breaker pen has a few other special characteristics:

Litter– The broody breaker should not have a comfortable litter. Sometimes just a thin layer of wood shaving litter works. However, for more persistent broody hens you may have to ditch the litter all together. Try paper towel, newspaper, or wood pellet bedding instead.

Separation– The broody breaker works to the effect of keeping the hen away from her preferred nesting spot and preventing her from setting on eggs that would encourage her broodiness.

Cooling Off- It should also help cool her off. A broody hen will raise her body temperature to help incubate her eggs. By getting some air flow under the broody and not letting her nest, you can lower her body temperature to help trigger that she shouldn’t be broody. Some folks like to use wire-bottomed cages as broody breakers to get airflow under the hen’s feathers.

How to Use a Broody Breaker

A broody breaker can be located inside or outside, or both. It basically needs to be a protected pen that keeps a hen away from her chosen nesting spot. It should supply the hen with food and water but no comfy litter for nesting. Once you move the broody hen to the broody breaker, she will probably eat, drink, and then proceed to pace and try to get out.

Don’t give in! If you let her out for a tiny break, she will probably look for a place to dust bath then go right back to her original nest. Make sure the hen has food and water every day. Remove any stinky broody poops on a regular basis. Once the hen starts eating, drinking, and behaving like normal, she has probably decided to stop being broody.

You can test her by letting her out of the broody breaker and seeing if she returns to her nest. A broody hen who has stopped being broody may also go through a mini molt before starting to lay again.

The one disadvantage to using a broody breaker is that you may have to re-integrate the hen once she is done being broody.

Breaking a broody can take days or weeks to do, depending on the hen’s persistence. If a certain hen consistently keeps going broody, you may consider selling her or giving her to someone who actually wants a broody hen.

How to Use a Broody Hen

The benefit of a broody hen is pretty obvious. She will hatch out chicks for you. That means no hassle with storing eggs, investing in an incubator, carefully monitoring the incubator, and taking care of the chicks in a brooder. The mother hen will take care of the temperature, humidity, and turning needs of the eggs. A mother hen is way more accurate than an incubator when it comes to monitoring incubating eggs!

If you let a broody hen hatch out chicks, then you also don’t have to buy chicks from a farm store or hatchery. You can have a self-sustaining flock that uses natural reproduction to replenish its numbers. This is more than likely what the pioneers did when they needed more chickens to replenish their flocks.

If you want to use a broody hen on your homestead, you should have these essentials ready:

• brooding box (different than a brooder)
• brooding litter/nesting litter
• fertile eggs
• chick starter feed

If you are interested in letting a broody hen set on a clutch of (fertile) eggs, check out this post on How to Care for a Broody Hen!

Broody Troubles

Dealing with a broody hen is sometimes not as simple as deciding to break her or let her hatch eggs. Here are a few broody situations that may have you scratching your head:

A hen disappears for a while and then returns with a brood of chicks!

Not much can be done other than letting her raise the chicks and then selling the chicks if you don’t need them in your homestead flock. Ideally, what until the chicks are old enough to be without the mother hen before selling them.

You want a broody hen but none of your hens will go broody.

Try getting a breed of chicken that is known for broodiness or look for a broody hen that someone else is wanting to get rid of. Silkies, Svart Honas, and Cochins all make great mothers!

A broody hen started setting on a clutch of eggs but then abandoned them.

If the eggs are developing (test this by candling them), then break out your incubator or invest in a new one and get those eggs cooking again!

Whether you decided to let your hen hatch some chicks of her own, or decided that she has to get back to more constructive work (aka, laying eggs), knowing how to deal with a broody hen in your flock can save you lots of time and headaches! Broody hens can be mean and down right persistent, which was the way nature intended them to be. They had to protect their nest from potential threats or even other hens. However, a broody hen is not for everyone, so make your decision and stick to it, down the road you may have a second chance if you change your mind.

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