Looking into the face of a broody (cranky) hen.

This is my little red, frizzle hen, she always looks like it's a bad hair day, she's about half a chicken tall with feathers covering everything including her feet. When she runs, she looks like one of those toys on wheels that buzz around.

I found her laying eggs in the corner of the machine shed so made sure I checked there every day. Monday morning when I went out to do chores, I found her making her way to the coop, she obviously missed curfew the night before and impatiently waited for me to open the door. Then she raced inside and ate ravenously.

Monday evening I checked the nest and found her still sitting in it, "Oh, no you don't," and hauled her butt back to the coop. She gobbled down more food and, before I could shut the door, she was out and on her way back to the machine shed. She had a nest there and that was all there was to it!!

Okay, it was time to deal with broody hens, I put her and the little white hen in the 'cooler' an outdoor cage I made when I had my bluejay. Usually if you get them away from where they choose to set, it will break their broodiness. There was food and water and a couple of boxes of straw as some of the hens like to lay their eggs in there.

But the 'yolk' was on me today, I stopped to see to their accommodations and found the frizzle comfortably settled into the plastic dishpan.

"Fine! You don't let me set where I want, I'll just make this work!"

She scolded me severely when I removed her from the dishpan and also took the other nest out. 

It's really not that hard to outsmart a chicken.

Two days later.....

Since my sister, Rosanne, wants a broody hen to raise a couple of chicks for her, I took an egg and a nest out to the blue jay cage this morning. The little red hen was running back and forth along the fence, "Tsk, Tsking," all the while. I put the nest with the egg in the shelter then caught her and plunked her into the nest also so see what she thought.

In mid-"Tsk!" she stopped, looked at the egg and gently lowered herself onto the nest, fluffed out her pantaloons and wiggled her butt to get things just so. She murmured softly to her future chick, how surprised she will be to have the shortest pregnancy in the chicken world. Now all we need are the chicks.......