Lacey

This is Lacey, our Golden Laced Wyandotte. She is also about 14 months old and usually lays one egg a day, however she has been broody the last few weeks and has not been laying. When a hen goes broody, they sit on the nest for much of the day and night. They don't even seem to eat as much as usual and they don't lay. They want to be raising chicks and are kind of stuck.

In order to attempt to break up this stage, we often removed Lacey from her nest during her broodiness and she would walk around slowly and cluck often. Her feathers were also quite fully puffed out during this phase. She seems to be coming out of the broodiness now as she is spending a lot more time foraging for food and off her nest.

She had claimed the best nesting box while she was broody. This seemed to upset the other hens a bit.