You’ve probably experienced this at some point: one day all is calm and peaceful in the chicken coop, and the next, your normally docile hen is suddenly squawking, acting aggressive, and refusing to leave the nest.
Sure enough, she’s sitting on a clutch of eggs.
What’s surprising to some chicken-keepers is that hens raised without roosters (and therefore don’t lay fertile eggs) can still go broody and attempt to sit on any egg (even imaginary ones at times) and wait for non-existent chicks to hatch.
Why does this happen and should you let your broody hen be? It all depends on your end goal.
What makes a hen go broody
Broodiness is a natural chicken instinct that happens to some chickens every year, and others not at all. The three main things that bring out this behavior include:
Hormones: Broodiness switches on as soon as a hen is old enough to lay, between five and eight months old, though a broody hen is typically at least a year old and has had a season of laying eggs.
Breed: Some breeds are more or less broody than others (which I talk about more below). Generally, heritage breeds tends to be more broody while hybrid breeds have had this behavior selectively bred out of them.
Daylight: The shortened daylength of winter often puts egg production on hold. But as the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, spring fever can spur a broody hen. She’ll start to lay eggs with more frequency, then sit on her own eggs (as well as other hens’ eggs), trying to incubate them and hatch a little family of chicks.
How long a hen stays broody
Left unattended, a hen will stay broody for around 21 days, which is the time it takes to hatch a clutch of fertile eggs. After 21 days the behavior should stop, but sometimes, a hen will remain broody and it’s important to break (that is, stop) a broody hen before she harms herself.
Signs of a broody hen
Broodiness can sometimes be mistaken for other health issues, but once you know what to look for, it’s easy to recognize the behavior.
Nesting: The telltale sign of a broody hen is a sudden display of motherly instinct. Her hormones kick in overtime, much as women’s do when they’re pregnant, and she focuses all of her energy into hatching eggs.
Egg hoarding: Broody hens don’t just sit on their own eggs. They’ll also hoard other hens’ eggs, creating havoc in the coop (especially if the rest of the flock tries to go in to lay eggs).
Roosting: A broody hen won’t go roost with her flock at night. She’ll stay in her dark, quiet nesting area, protecting her eggs and keeping them warm.
Aggression: Even the sweetest hen will become fiercely protective and aggressive, pecking at you if you try to handle her or remove her eggs from the nest.
Feather loss: A broody hen will pull out her own chest features so her skin rests directly on the eggs to provide more body heat.
Drop in egg production: A broody hen will stop laying eggs until she hatches the ones she’s sitting on.
Drop in appetite and activity level: As a broody, your hen is focused on sitting on a nest to keep the eggs warm for several hours a day, putting the babies’ needs in front of hers and making sure the eggs are well protected. She won’t be eating or drinking as much, and certainly won’t be roaming the yard with her flock.
Should you let your hen be broody?
If you want to increase your flock, allowing a broody hen to hatch eggs is significantly easier than managing the process in an incubator. The mama hen takes care of all the details for you, from providing the proper warmth and humidity levels to egg turning to hatching the eggs to raising the chicks outside and acclimating them to their natural environment.
On the other hand, if you prefer to use an incubator or don’t intend to hatch chicks, a broody hen needs to be tamed due to a number of risks.
It there are no fertile eggs to hatch, a stubborn hen could make herself malnourished. It’s unlikely that a broody hen will starve or die in the nest (after all, it’s part of her mama instinct: she won’t do her chicks-to-be any good if she starves herself to death). But she won’t be drinking and eating as much as she normally would, and she’ll lose more weight than she should.
She’ll stop laying eggs the entire time she’s broody, which could mean 21 days (or more) of no eggs from one chicken during peak production season.
She’ll also hog the egg box the whole time, leaving little to no room for other chickens to lay eggs. If they come near her, she might peck or screech at them.
When broodiness goes on for an excessive amount of time, it makes the hen more susceptible to respiratory infections and other diseases because she’ll be too weak to deal with any illness she’s exposed to.
Broody hens are also at risk for getting mites and lice, because they stay in the nest all day where these infestations are common. They aren’t dust bathing and they aren’t outside scratching and pecking, away from bedding material where parasites like to hide.
This is when an easily preventable or treatable problem like mites and lice can turn fatal, as a broody hen will just sit and suffer in her nest.
If your hen turns broody in the height of summer, a poorly designed or poorly ventilated chicken coop could cause the egg box to heat up too much, putting your hen at risk of heat exhaustion.
For all these reasons, it’s important that you break a broody hen if you aren’t hatching eggs.
The 6 most broody chicken breeds
Certain breeds of chickens are more broody than others. This is actually good to know if you want to hatch your own eggs every year, but it’s also useful for predicting which hens in your flock may be out of commission each summer.
1. Cochins
Cochins have a strong tendency to turn broody every year during their prime egg-laying years. They are big, fluffy, and sweet, and since they don’t lay as prolifically as other breeds, Cochins make great mothers and pets.
2. Silkies
This petite breed is incredibly docile, almost like the chicken version of a lap dog. They’re probably tied with Cochins for being the broodiest chicken breed, so expect them to take a break from laying when this happens.
3. Buff Orpingtons
Another sweet, lovable bird with a docile personality, Buff Orpingtons have that natural motherly instinct so they’re prone to going broody. Since they also happen to be very productive layers, this is something to watch for in peak season if you depend on a steady supply of eggs.
4. Buff Rocks
The Plymouth Rock breed is one of the most docile breeds (do you see a trend happening here?) and known for following its keepers around. I used to have a Barred Rock that would always try to jump in my lap! But this cuddly tendency is what also makes them more likely to go broody (the Buff Rock hen, in particular).
5. Brahmas
Brahmas are hefty, fluffy chickens with feathered feet. They tend to go broody in early summer, especially if there’s another hen in the flock that goes broody. Brahmas are a great choice if you want a devoted sitter, but because of their size, be sure to watch them after the eggs hatch so they don’t accidentally trample their chicks.
6. Sussex
The Sussex is one of the oldest chicken breeds, and a very friendly and reliable layer. These chickens go broody every year (sometimes quite early) and also make great mothers, so if this is what you want, you can count on them to hatch a clutch of eggs.
The least broody chicken breeds
From personal experience, I’ve raised three different generations of Easter Eggers and none of them have ever gone broody. This is a very active and curious breed, and my Easter Eggers have always been more interested in exploring and foraging than sitting on a nest.
That said, there are other breeds known for either not being broody in general, or just not being very reliable sitters. They may start out broody but abandon their nest soon after, so it doesn’t take much to break these hens from their broodiness.
Non-broody breeds also tend to have a few common characteristics: lightweight, somewhat flighty or skittish, and Mediterranean, Continental, or otherwise non-American classifications. Hybrid layers bred for production (such as black sexlinks and red sexlinks) also rarely go broody.
- Crevecoeur
- Easter Egger
- Hamburg
- Lakenvelder
- Minorca
- Polish
- Rosecomb
- Sebright
- Sexlink
- Sicilian Buttercup
