I was a little surprised. Poppy (her sister) is usually the one to go broody first, and Poppy had been showing i'm-thinking-about-going-broody symptoms. Instead, it's Gloria clamped to the next box.
I'm well aware of the suggestions for "breaking" a broody. Early in my chicken keeping life, I even tried a few of them with varying degrees of success (and failure). Eventually I accepted that going broody was just something that some hens need to do, and so now we let them get on with it. We had even considered letting either Poppy or Gloria raise some chicks this year, but we've decided to have a year off chicks.
The downside is the disruption it causes the others in the flock when their favoured egg laying spot is occupied.
No, that's not really true. The downside is the disruption caused when one or two of the remaining flock decide to get very vocal in expressing their annoyance about the nest box hogging. They complain, loudly and persistently about it. It's a darned nuisance, and complegtely unnecessary. We have ample nest boxes: 2 Cubes, and 2 extra wooden nestboxes.
Sasha and Fay (our Appenzeller and Fayoumi) start getting very gobby, very early in the morning. We've been shutting the Cube door at night so that the sounds are muffled, otherwise they just get up and start being gobby in the run.We've tried letting them out in the run early. The gobbiness continues, unmuffled.
We've tried letting them out in to the garden. The gobbiness continues, even closer to our neighbours.
I've had some success with getting up at stupid o'clock, hoiking the offending chook(s) out of the back of the Cube and then shutting them in the little wooden nest boxes. They can't get the height in there to get the volume. When I do it, I set an alarm for 30 minutes (I don't like to keep them
shut in there for too long), so I have to get up again to let them out.
It does mean that I have to get myself out of bed though, and some mornings.... well, I fail. I don't sleep through the noise, I just struggle to get myself up.
As the nights get warmer, and people start sleeping with their windows open, I can't take option of lying in bed trying to ignore it option.
I love Sasa, and I love Faye. They are tiny, funny, silly, chooks.
At 5.30/6.00 in the morning, they aren't so lovely.
