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What's up with my hens'? šŸ¤Ø

The cold water dip might work for some, but not others.

Of the ones weā€™ve had go broody, some have required DAYS in a dog crate with the wire mesh base, to stop.

the more recent ones just required removing the eggs (once we found them, hiding out in a brand new nesting spot with a dozen eggs :angry:) and sticking them back in the coop for the night. They were justā€¦over it that fast.

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Perhaps a dunk and straight to the crate would speed things up. I had a Brahma that would go broody again a week after every attempt to break her for months. I felt bad and it was so much extra work that I finally said eff it and let her sit with food and water nearby for almost a month. She walked away one day and never did it again. Her sister did about 36 hours in the crate one time and that was it.

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I had one like that and I invited her to dinner :grimacing:

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I give my chickens a small amount of scratch every afternoon/evening when Iā€™m ready to put them back in the coop. All I have to do is step into the yard to have them all come running/flapping as fast as they can, at any time of day. :joy: Work smarter, not harder!

It takes the juveniles a while to catch on, so there is some wrangling involved anytime I have newbies to integrate, but it is soooo much easier most days.

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Mine get Cheerios as an evening treat, BOSS in the mornings.
Spoiled much? :weary:
But just the sound of the goodies rattling in the tupperware brings them running from all corners of the yard :baby_chick: :hatched_chick: :baby_chick: :hatched_chick:

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Oh but theyā€™re roosting on top of the fence that the coop backs up to! And theyā€™re previous deviation was the tree that overhangs the coop. They always put themselves to bed, and USUALLY itā€™s actually in the coop. Itā€™s just every now and then they want a chance of scenery, no matter how local LOL

Mine donā€™t get the option to hit a tree, weā€™re Fort Knox up in here thanks to the opossums and raccoons mostly. Still irritates me when they choose the floor though.

I did have one batch that chose to sit on an old hay bunk I had in the stall one winter. That sucker was 1/2" plywood, baffled me all to heck. The normal roosts I gave them are 2x4s wide side up :woman_shrugging:

Chickens will want to roost wherever is highest, even if it hurts their feet. And then you get into bossy hens not allowing the lessor ones on the same level, or you peeked in the coop and scared them once, or a car backfired, or, or, or. I think the only thing you can do to change unwanted laying and sleeping habits is to eliminate the bad choices and give them several options of good ones. Chickens seem to just ā€œmove onā€ to something new without much thought to whatever was working before so theyā€™re unlikely to switch back on their own. Until something happens at the new spot.

Yep. Their regular roosts were pretty high in my opinion, I had like four of them a foot apart going upwards, ya know what I mean, but for whatever reason someoneā€™s pea brain went, ā€œOh! Up there! That looks better!ā€ and off they went :laughing:

It sounds like you built them a ladder to the higher spot so they assumed thatā€™s what you wanted. :sweat_smile:

Except it was on the opposite side! :joy:

You probably need more than 2 boxes. I have 8 for 20 hens and frequently I find 2 crammed into one space. I wonder if you have the nest boxes occupied and they need to lay their egg they have to find somewhere to go?

@CrazyGuineaPigLady Well, the straight hung, nice, fat, round roosts & the skinny lath are set at the exact same height.

@candyappy Only 4 hens for 2 nestboxes. Before the floor got popular Iā€™d find an egg or two in each box, sometimes 3 or 4 in a single box.
When I had 6 (predecessors) hens, same.
2 boxes always seemed enough :woman_shrugging:

For reasons unknown to you, they like the wrong place more. All you can do is block it off or try to make the other one more appealing. :woman_shrugging:

You got them half way to where they wanted to be. LOL

Iā€™m not sure how any of my childhood chickens survived because my mother never considered a coop. They got themselves to the highest rafter (in several barns through the years) and none of the adults got picked off by predators. Getting to that point could be a little troublesome, though.

They can roost wherever their little chicken hearts desire :smirk:
I just find it funny they apparently havenā€™t read Storeyā€™s Guide.
Or refuse to bow to the Wisdom of the Backyard Chickens BB.

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I frequently have 1/2 of my boxes with no eggs and my hens seem to like to lay where others already have. I occasionally have an egg in an odd place. Maybe it is just a phase?

Lots going on in those teeny chicken brains :exploding_head:
My 2Ā¢ on the multi-used box:
It means someone - & not necessarily the hen who layed there first - is gonna have to hatch all the eggs :smirk:
Chicken Sister Wives? :chicken::chicken::chicken::rooster:

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iā€™ve 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, sheā€™ll eventually break. Or sheā€™ll 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 beā€“I can carry him around, has never ever been aggressive. Without any ā€˜trainingā€™, itā€™s not like I handled him much as a hatchling.

Our 2022 hatchery chicks are 9 wk old ā€˜teenagersā€™, 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.

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:smiling_face_with_three_hearts:LOVE Monster!!!
My only roosters have been a day old chick that morphed into a handsome rust & cream Asshat.
When that one hit puberty & started doing The Dance of Death to me I put into use an old plastic rake that had lost itā€™s teeth. Perfect Rooster Launcher :smiling_imp:
When he started threatening guests, I considered a Freezer Retirement. But he fell victim to a fox, protecting his hens. So, an honorable death. :sleepy:

Next 3 were from a batch of 6 young Barred Rock freebies. Around 6wks when I got them, about a month later it was Ruh-Roh & I ended up taking the 2 testosterone-est roosters to a local sale.
Got $19 for them. TaTa, Jerks! :wave:

#3 is now lording it over the 4 hens & treating me with the respect thatā€™s keeping him alive.

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