In all our years of chicken keeping this has never happened before. We went up yesterday afternoon and there were no chickens in the run, empty run! They were all in the three nest boxes.
Mango and Cloud have now gone broody together. Of course together because they do everything together! The thing that drives me crazy when these two go broody together is that they take on mother and chick roll and Mango sits on top of Cloud. It’s always this round, always Mango on top of Cloud. And they egg each other on, excuse the pun, making it harder to break them out of it, plus it means losing two egg layers at once.
Snow is still broody although I think she is loosening as she is staying out in the run a bit longer. That leaves three remaining laying girls, that being Red, Gold and Storm. So I went up to check on them with my camera.
Red, Gold and Storm got their eggs laid and I then turfed the broodies out and closed the nest boxes and the shed for the rest of the day.
This is definitely the most broody year we have ever had, sigh!
Click here to see the history of my flock.
Very unusual for all the girls in the nest boxes, so no eggs at the moment.
We have never had the entire flock in the nest boxes at once before. Storm and Gold were laying. Red has now gone broody too, see my next post, so we have only two girls laying – Gold and Storm.
It does seem particularly bad for you this year and worse than here. However, I have only just managed to break 2 brown leghorns, after almost a week in jail. The crate has rarely been empty for the past 6 weeks.
This is the worse broody year I have ever had. I am putting it down to such good early weather this year and no non broody girl as part of the flock. Even so it is much worse than I have ever experienced before.