Confused chooks . . or signs of senility?

A Google search suggests the way to interrupt or stop broodiness in hens is to remove them from the nest after the usual three-week egg-sitting period, and then to dunk their chest and bottoms in cool water. Hmm. Didn’t work with Silver. In truth, it’s not been a reliable method to switch off the broodiness in other chooks we’ve had over the years. That’s assuming we’ve been able to locate the nests of our free-ranging girls, as irritatingly they don’t always choose to lay in the perfectly good nesting boxes in the chook house.

Opportunities for motherhood are long gone as we decided not to replace the rooster following a distressing night of carnage several years ago by either a feral cat or a quoll.

Silver though took her determined broodiness to the next level. She’s a placid chook and wasn’t too fazed when I regularly picked her up and tossed her off the nest to ensure she didn’t croak it from lack of food and water after her three-week stint of sitting on nothing. I’d long since removed the eggs. Stubbornly, back she went every time. A true triumph of optimism over reality for a bantam hen who’s undoubtedly getting a bit long in the tooth (beak?) and has to be admired for still being able to lay eggs at all. I dubbed her Silver due to the sprinkle of white feathers around her throat, which distinguishes her from the two other black bantams, none of which are a pure breed.

Possibly the last stern talking to Silver received while being dunked for the fourth or fifth time after a total of seven weeks on the nest finally had an effect. But I rather think it had more to do with the fact I ensured she wasn’t able to settle back on the nest either. Whatever, the penny must have dropped as the following morning she finally joined the others for brekkie, and has shown no signs of going back on the nest since. Phew.

Typically though another one has gone clucky. She’s now also sitting on nothing, but I’ll leave her there until her three weeks are up, and keep my fingers crossed instinct will kick in although somehow I have my doubts.

All five girls are ageing so it’s quite remarkable they are still up to egg laying at all. One of the benefits perhaps of being completely free range, and compared to far too many chooks around the world who have cruel and appalling lives, are enjoying happy and contented ones – despite their inability to be mothers any longer.