iāve gotten tired of forcibly breaking broodies. My coop is a whole building (140 y/o farm, they were serious about their chickens.) So with just 15-20 hens at any given time I have enough flexibility in my coop arrangements that I just isolate that hen to her own small area with her personal (chickenal?) supply of water and grain. To me the key is to prevent her from appropriating all the other hensā eggs into her clutch. With just one batch of eggs to deal with, sheāll eventually break. Or sheāll hatch something which is awesome. That said, this laissez-faire brooding strategy has only produced one single hatched chick in my 12+ yrs of keeping chx.
But that said (part deux), the one chick we hatched here is the most awesome Big Unit of a Rooster. His name is Monster, clearly out of one of the cochin hens but his dad was a welsummer. Monster is sweet as can beāI can carry him around, has never ever been aggressive. Without any ātrainingā, itās not like I handled him much as a hatchling.
Our 2022 hatchery chicks are 9 wk old āteenagersā, and starting to express curiosity about going outside with all the Grownups. One of them rushed out the open door and then froze, unsure what she should be doing in this new giant, world-sized coop. She ran over to Monster and squished under his wing, as if he was a mother hen. He very patiently foraged while keeping the scared chick under wing. Such a sweet guy.