You only need enough water to cover her chest when she sits. Fill a sink or wash tub with a few inches of cold water and gently lower the chicken into the bath. If you don’t have a frozen water bottle, you can dip her bottom into cold water. Here are three of the most common methods we’ve found for breaking a hen’s broody mood: Put the hen in a small cage with a wire bottom (at least 1″ square openings) and elevate it off the ground so that cool air can circulate underneath. Keep her in there for 3-4 days, unless she lays an egg earlier. There are several different methods you can use to ‘break’ a broody hen- they range from mild to ‘chicken jail’ for as long as needed. How To Break Up A Broody Hen. Then, take your broody hen and dunk her in the water-- all that is necessary is her body, so don't dunk her head and neck. Lift her up and plonk her in the yard with the rest of the hens. Remember that she heats her eggs, so a broody hen has quite a warm bottom end. You may need to remove her to a separate place without access to the nest boxes, but with access to food and water. Put your hand in there to check the temperature, and if it's too cold, add some warm water from a sink. Include food and water, of course. Depending on how determined the hen is to set, one or more of the following measures may discourage her, a process known as breaking up the broody. The water method uses cool but not cold water to cool off the chickens brood area. The best way I know to break a determined broody hen is to confine her to a wire-bottomed cage, like a rabbit or parrot cage, and place that cage up on sawhorses, blocks, or hang it from the rafters, so that air can flow up underneath. You may also try setting a clutch of ice cubes in the nest box so … Provide food and water, but NO bedding. I like to move them to a cage with a wire bottom into my garage. Let her sit in there for about half a minute to a minute and then take her out and dry her well. Offer her treats to stay outside. Don't put bedding in it. 1. Removal. If after a few tries and a few treats she’s still determined to nest, try the next trick: the cold water bath. • Collect eggs often. It … To break up a broody hen, you can start by trying to disturb her when she is in the nest box. If you have a particularly difficult broody hen, you can put a cold or frozen water bottle under her while she is sitting. Get a bucket of water about 30 degrees C and float the chicken in it for a few minutes. How Can I Stop A Broody Hen? 5 Simple Tips to "Break" a Broody Hen: Be sure to remove eggs from under the hen regularly and, if possible, pick her up and set her away from the nesting area while you collect them. Whatever it is, the best way to prevent hens from going broody is to take away their eggs daily. (Poor thing, she’s totally bare there!) Usually this keeps the chain reaction of broodyness from happening with the other hens. The cold helps to trigger a break in the broodiness. The hen accumulates a clutch of eggs in order to hatch them and by taking them away each day they never accumulate a clutch. This doesn't always work to keep them from going broody but it seems to help, at least in my experience. The first step is to keep removing her from the nest. Even a hen that persists in setting on a nest full of infertile eggs, or no eggs at all, may lose so much weight her health is endangered. Breaking a broody hen If you decide you don't want a hen being broody the first thing to do is move her away from the other hens. Create a separate environment for her using a small portable coop or crate. The sight of a clutch of eggs accumulating in a nest is often enough to … Wondering what a broody chicken is or how to stop it- look no further.