Broody Hens

Well it started with a few bantom hens trying and I didn't mind because they could sit on some Muscovy eggs for me , but now I have four ? maybe five full size hens working on nests that have no eggs ?? I'm letting on GJ sit ( chicken eggs and a few Muscovy eggs ), but now three , maybe four Cuckoo Maran hens have joined in as well ? Not sure what to make of all this ? How do you get them to stop ? if it were earlier in the year I might let them sit on some eggs , but now I just want the eggs to sell .Help ?

My crazy girls are doing the same! I let one hatch out 7 chicks (or rather, she allowed me to witness her performing that miracle lol) but the others...I want to break them up!!

So the only success I've had is to put them in a wire cage, up off the ground (I just put 4 chunks of wood under the cage so it's not sitting right on the shavings but they're still down at eye-level to their coop-mates) so they "cool their jets". It seems to help to have airflow. I guess it breaks that nesting, cosy, dreamy thing they get going. Seemed to work anyway. A couple of days and they'd be back to business.

Wow, talk about broody fever. I've heard the method farmchiq described works well. To hurry the process you might putting a "clutch" of ice cubes under them. That should cool them off real quick. Good luck with breaking your broodies.