The Witch Chickens Of Hampshire

Bad news: Hilda has joined Cleo gone broody again. Which means that two out of three of our hens will be producing no eggs until they come to their senses and snap out of it.

It is very annoying when they get broody. Obviously it is a natural part of being a chicken, but as we have no room for hundreds of little chicks and too many fussy neighbours for a cockerel it is rather pointless.

We actually gave Hilda some fertilised eggs to sit on once, donated by a chicken-keeping friend, but given the chance of actually fulfilling the purpose of going broody, she was an awful mother. She kept leaving them to get cold. Thus no little chicks grew inside; they just went off.

Broodies are also horribly grumpy animals. They go round attacking anything that moves (ducks, rabbits, humans, for example) if you disturb them, and if you lift them out of the nest box they make a very affronted "brrrrriiiiiiii!" noise. We have tried all sorts of methods: just leaving them to it, lifting them out of the nest box every time they go in, locking them out altogether (although this means that poor old sensible Nod can't go in and lay)...but nothing works. We're going to have to make a broody coop and do the thing properly.

Sometimes when both Cleo and Hilda are broody and Noddy needs to lay an egg, we find them all crammed into the two nestboxes. Here is a pic.


Noddy never goes broody. I feel quite sorry for her as today she keeps hanging round the ducks as if she's saying, "can I play with you today?" Poor chook.