Since I recently returned from vacation and had a lot to catch up on here at the homestead, this week I am bringing you a mini-episode! I’ll be discussing what it means for a hen to ‘go broody’ and what you can do about it, as well as sharing news from my apiary. After that, for anyone who is interested, I’ll talk about my recent holiday in the mountains of North Carolina. You can listen in over on Podbean, or wherever you get your podcasts!
With thanks to my sources:
The Spruce: How to Break a Broody Hen
The Chicken Chick: Caring for Broody hens
Broody Hens
What is a ‘broody’ hen? Or what does it mean for a hen to ‘go broody’? Simply put, this is a hen who has decided it’s time to reproduce by incubating a clutch of eggs until they hatch.
If you look up information on the subject, most of it will be focused on how to ‘break’ your hen of her broodiness. This is partly because hens will go broody even without a rooster present, which means she is sitting on infertile eggs with no hope of them ever hatching. Since broody hens will only leave the nest to eat, drink, and poop once per day, this period of time is hard on their little bodies, and so many chicken owners are eager to get them back to normal. It’s also a large focus of discussion because a broody hen will stop laying eggs, and most people want their chickens to continually provide us with those delicious butt-nuggets.
How can you identify a broody hen?
They’re hard to miss since they will sit in the nest box, refuse to move, and give you the stink-eye. If you insist on trying to rouse her, she will hiss, growl, and even viciously peck you in defense of her clutch.
Some broody hens will allow other flock members to lay eggs in her chosen nest spot, at least until she has accumulated what she feels is a full clutch. My current broody stopped allowing the other girls in when she had 12 eggs to sit on. After a clutch has been collected, the broody hen will jealously guard her nest and usually keep other chickens out. Sometimes, fighting can occur if this is a favoured nest site, and so it’s often recommended to remove the broody hen and her nest to an area away from the flock, complete with her own source of food and water.
When you find yourself with a broody hen, the main question to consider is do you want chicks? If yes, let her do her thing. If you do but you have no rooster, you can buy fertile eggs (or trade with a local homesteader/farmer) and place them under her. If you don’t want chicks, you can try the following techniques.
‘Breaking’ a broody hen can be as simple as removing the nest site, or keeping her from it (by closing up the coop during the day). A determined hen might establish a nest elsewhere, however, even one hidden away somewhere on your property if you free range your flock so this isn’t a foolproof method. Often, it’s recommended to cool her abdomen as this seems to trigger a reset of the hormones that led her to this point. Some articles recommend placing cold water bottles under her or even ice cubes but the most discussed/effective method seems to be moving her into a crate. This crate should have no substrate/bedding and be elevated at least a few inches from the ground. This allows air to circulate under the hen and will eventually break her of her broodiness. The nice thing about this method is that it also keeps her safe and secure while she is banished from the coop (and nest boxes). Provide her with water and food, and anticipate quite the racket; she will not be shy about making her displeasure known! After a few days of this time-out, you can let her back into the coop; if she immediately sits down on a nest and starts growling at you, she’s not yet over her need to reproduce! Put her back in the crate for a few more days.
I’d always read about broody hens but never experienced it until very recently. Cheddar, my Jersey Giant, suddenly decided it was time to raise a family, and took up residence in the nestbox on the floor of the coop (always a favourite! Apparently the elevated, roomy nestboxes built into the coop wall are not good enough for my fussy ladies). Since I have a rooster, I decided to let her do her thing and left her to it.
However, after a few days, I noticed that some of the eggs in her clutch were breaking. What seemed to be happening is that the other hens would come in and lay their daily egg on top of the older eggs, and then their body weight would break the shells. After cleaning up the nest area (much to Cheddar’s displeasure!), I decided to move her to a private location. I took a medium sized dog crate, placed an enclosed nest box inside, carefully moved the eggs, put in food and water, and covered the whole thing with a tarp. Then I placed this in the chicken run for extra predator protection.
Well, Cheddar was not having it. Not only did this upset her a tremendous amount, to the point where she flew into the ceiling of the crate and then tried to squeeze herself through the bars, but she refused to sit on the eggs. I think she finally deigned to sit half on the clutch for maybe an hour or so despite giving her a little more than 24hrs to adjust. Ultimately, I decided the stress she was enduring wasn’t worth it and let her out. She immediately when back to the original nest site and refused to move. Clearly, chickens do not read the guide books on appropriate broody hen behaviour!!
Sadly for Miss Cheddar, the broken egg saga continued and I started to become suspicious about the viability of the eggs. After candling all 12, only 2 showed signs of being fertile. I promptly disposed of the duds and returned the 2 possible ‘good’ eggs to her. When she first went broody, I decided to hold off on my plan to bring some pullets home since I might soon have a clutch of sweet chicks (it takes 21 days for a chick to hatch). However, based on this abysmal fertility rate, and the fact that Cheddar has been taking longer and longer breaks from the nest, I have decided that Operation Pullets is back on. And I am delighted to say that I did receive the coop I had been eyeing for my recent birthday so I can finally set up a proper quarantine coop for new additions. Very exciting! I’ll update when the new girls have been acquired (hopefully within the next 2 weeks!).
Hive Updates
Once we returned from our vacation, I was eager to get back into the hives. Aside from the usual concerns (looking for signs of swarming, honey production, queenlessness, etc), I was particularly eager to learn whether my nucleus colony now had a laying queen, and whether my queenless split had finally managed to hatch a new queen. Well, I was delighted to find an abundance of eggs and young brood in my nuc box, and equally disappointed to learn that my queenless colony yet again failed to raise a queen of their own. I decided to split this colony in half, and use the newspaper method (placing a few sheets of newspaper between the hive bodies) to merge them to my newly queenright nuc, and hive #4 (which was the first successful nucleus colony of the year).
During my first inspection, I was able to merge a deep box of the queenless colony to hive #4. However, at that time, I’d been working with the hives for almost 2 hours and had attracted the attention of robber bees. The response was so aggressive that I had to close everything up and spray the hives down with water. As a result, I did not merge the remaining part of the queenless colony to my newly queenright nuc, as I didn’t want to risk opening up more hives.
Returning the next day, I found that the queenless colony and hive #4 had been badly robbed. There was a pile of dead bees by the entrance and on the ground, and a large amount of wax on the bottom board. When I checked on the honey super, it was totally empty!! I was kicking myself for not taking the 2 full frames and the remaining partials when I had the chance but I just didn’t expect this kind of response. Even last summer when we had almost constant robbing, I never saw this many dead bees. I’m genuinely worried that the queen of hive #4 might have perished during this fierce attack but will not risk opening the hive to check. Instead, I worked fast to merge the queenless colony to my newly-queenright nucleus colony, and then covered this hive (now named hive #5) and hive #4 with a damp bed sheet. This will stop the robber bees from being able to get into the hive. I removed the sheets the following morning and monitored for signs of robbing. I also placed an order for robber guards for all Langstroth hives that I can collect on Friday, and reduced all the entrances.
It’s always something with bees! It’s been #beedrama since day one!
In more positive news, my top bar hive seems to have been completely unfazed, maybe even unnoticed, by the robber bees. Maybe because the entrances are naturally so much smaller, and I don’t expose the whole colony (including honey stores) when I open it up for inspection? Whatever the reason, this colony is still a delight to work, and I was able to do a mite check without drawing attention to their food stores. It was the most peaceful inspection of the past 2 days!! Instead of rushing through so I didn’t attract more robbing bees, I was able to relax and Zen my way through it.
Even better, their mite count was excellent: 1/300 (varroa/bees)! In fact, all tested colonies (bar one) had the same result! This is really good for this time of year, especially considering that robbing behaviour increases varroa transmission. The one outlier was the queenless colony (before I broke it apart), which had a reading of 5/300. This is still within acceptable levels, though, and breaking them apart to merge to colonies with such low levels will hopefully deal with the problem. I will keep testing each month and treat as needed. This recent awful bout of robbing might have had a drastic effect on the mite levels so we shall see.
As for a honey harvest, I rather missed the boat on that one. I have just 2 deeps and 3 medium frames of honey that I pulled before my vacation, and I’ll go ahead and extract those this week. I was hoping for more but that one super was robbed viciously, and I don’t want to take from my stronger colonies now that the nectar dearth is hitting us so hard. I’d rather they use it for themselves and focus on staying strong as we move into Fall.
It’s funny because, upon returning from North Carolina, I felt like the cool mornings and smell of the air at night indicated that Fall was creeping up on us but I dismissed it as fancy and worked the apiary as I would during late Spring/early Summer. A big mistake! I should have trusted my gut and taken the precautions I usually take in the Fall when the bees are testy due to the dearth. Lesson learned!
If we’re lucky, we’ll get a good nectar flow once the goldenrod starts to bloom. Last year’s was far too short and a bit dismal but I am cautiously optimistic that this year will be better. If not and I am stuck with my pitiful harvest, at least I know many local beekeepers I can buy honey from! I’ve always said that I got into beekeeping for the bees, not the honey, and now it’s time to prove it because the honey just aint happening, right now.
What I want, more than anything, is to get all my colonies strong enough to survive the winter.
Vacation!
We stayed in Old Fort, NC (near Asheville and Black Mountain), and our cabin/house had amazing mountain views that we soaked up every morning and evening.
We saw our first black bears after all these years of hiking! One adult and one baby (mama was in the bushes nearby, we think)
Lots of beautiful waterfalls nearby, and quite a few challenging hikes
Asheville is a mix of hippies and hipsters so there’s a lot of great coffee shops, local stores, as well as gluten free, vegetarian, and vegan food. Many places sourced their ingredients from local farmers and homesteaders, which was wonderful to see! We found a bakery with incredible gluten free desserts on our first day there, and I was happy to treat myself. If you’re ever in Asheville, check out Old Europe Pastries for absolutely decadent desserts (regular and GF!).
Since I am a daily tea drinker and insist on local honey, we also found a honey shop in downtime Asheville. Asheville Bee Charmer stocks a variety of different honeys, most local, and has a honey tasting bar where you can sample to your heart’s content! It was a hard decision but my husband and I were able to whittle down our selection to their incredible Blackberry and Sourwood honeys. I also picked up some great bee themed stickers!
As diverse as Asheville is, my favourite place to shop was Black Mountain. This is a much smaller town and so was generally quieter and more peaceful. Still plenty of great places to eat, drink, and shop, though! I was in love with a yarn store here, where I picked up more yarn to continue my recent obsession of crocheting small bees. We also had absolutely delicious gluten free pizza at My Father’s Pizza, which I heartily recommend.
The crown jewel (when it comes to food) has to be The Blue Ridge Biscuit Company, where I had the most delicious gluten free biscuit and waffle!! I’ve never had a proper American biscuit before since I was diagnosed with coeliac disease before I moved here. I’ve drooled over those my husband has consumed (he grew up in the South so he loves a good biscuit!) and had no real success making my own with GF flours. This one was amazing and one of the best things I have ever tasted! I’m in love. You absolutely have to check them out if you’re ever in the area.
We did have a minor blip during our 5 days away. Namely, we both got a little sick about halfway through. My husband bounced back within hours but I was not myself for a good 24hrs, which sadly included my birthday! It wasn’t a complete bust, though, as we took the time to relax and recover, and that was the day of our first bear sighting. My birthday bear! I really can’t complain about that. Thankfully I rallied and we went on to have more adventures, including a walk around Lake Tomahawk, which has beautiful views. While here, we watched an osprey hunt (my favourite bird of prey!), saw a duck with an adorable gaggle of ducklings, and made friends with some larger ducks who desperately wanted us to feed them (we did not).
My biggest regret is that I wasn’t able to tour any of the local farms. Most do offer public tours but book up very quickly. Since we planned this trip on short notice, I wasn’t able to get out to visit the alpaca or dairy farms I had hoped to tour. Next time, though!
Upon returning home, I immediately threw myself back into the homestead. I missed it all so much! The smell of the air in the morning, the view of the beehives, the crazy noises of the chickens, the snuggles with my puppies, even our comfy furniture! We have really nested here, and it was hard for me to be away from it. I was so happy to be back! We arrived Friday evening but I immediately started cleaning out animal cages, checking on the various babies (frogs, skinks, and snakes, currently), and planning the next day’s agenda. I cleaned and sorted and fussed and was happy as a pig in muck! That night, I slept better than I had in over a week, and felt immeasurably blessed to return to all this.
Finding a farm sitter is such a struggle. There don’t appear to be any licensed and insured sitters in our area so we have always relied on friends and my husband’s students. This time, we were fortunate enough to have my sister-in-law stay here and take on all the animal care. She has been volunteering with a farm sanctuary in her home state of Florida for almost a year and so knows what she is doing. We gave her a crash course on the reptiles, and she knows our dogs well and absolutely adores them so not much there to learn. I wrote detailed instructions, complete with multiple emergency contacts and vets, as well as a daily checklist. It was a lot! But it did the trick; she did an amazing job and we returned to happy, healthy critters. She liked my daily checklist so much that she (jokingly) asked me to do one for her day-to-day life to help her stay organized! We shall see. Good to know my control issues lead to banging to-do lists!
I will say, finally, that I am still struggling with my depression and will be increasing my antidepressants. It’s becoming more and more clear that my anti-anxiety meds have reduced the constant mental chatter, which means that it’s harder for me to distract myself, or hide from my depression. The lows have been real low and all-consuming, and I’ve really struggled (including on vacation, which feels so unfair). But I’m clawing my way back whenever I can and refusing to give up. Doing my best to hold on to the good moments, and to write them down so I have tangible proof that they happen. Ultimately, despite my struggles, I am immeasurably blessed and I do my best to remember that. I hope that, if you’re struggling, you can find the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Everything changes; even these moments of sadness. I am hoping for better days for all of us.
Please join me again in two weeks for a longer, more hashed-out episode! Thank you for reading and listening. I appreciate you!
