I’ve had chickens for over fifteen years, and yet they still confound me! I think I know what I’m doing, and then I get that one bird, doing that one, odd thing, and I scramble around for answers. Readers of this blog ask me for advice. I know the answers to some, but not all of your queries. When that happens, the first thing that I do is check my shelf of  chicken keeping books, which includes the standard by Gail Damerow, and new references by Christine Heinrichs and others (see my site chickenkeeping.com for more details.) There isn’t one book that covers everything. I have a collection of vintage books, from a time when farmers kept free-range poultry of various breeds, and before the advent of miracle drugs. They often have the best information.

There are two new books on the market with similar titles – Raising Chickens For Dummies by Willis and Ludlow, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Raising Chickens by Belanger. Belanger has been a self-sufficient farmer from way back. His book reflects his practical, lifelong knowledge. The perspective is from someone who raises chickens with a purpose. There’s an excellent section on culling and butchering. Ludlow’s book reflects the newer crop of chicken keepers. He writes about meat birds, but also about layers and hens as pets. I have some quibbles about the details in his book (for example, the section on lice is incomplete.) Neither address the issues of broodiness that we’ve been discussing on this blog. Neither have comprehensive illustrations. But, both books are useful. Of the two, Belanger’s book is a good starting point for the new chicken keeper.

After looking through my library, I’ll do a web search, with, as with all web searches, a hefty dose of skepticism. There are chicken forums on the web, like BYC. It’s a great community, and there’s some good advice, but there’s also a lot of guess work and erroneous information being dispensed. Some of the state agriculture commissions have useful information. On the other hand, some are geared to commercial farmers, and the advice is wrong for the backyard keeper. I’ve got an annotated list of some good sites on chickenkeeping.com.

Ultimately, I take what I’ve gathered and make my own conclusions. I keep chickens for eggs, but also for pets. My hens are individuals to me, and each one is valuable. I’m not breeding for show, and I’m not a farmer worried about one ill animal destroying a flock of 10,000. I don’t eat my birds (but would if I had a rooster to dispense.) In short, I have my own perspective. After years of being around these animals (and, going way back, to getting a BS in animal science from UNH) I have an ability to cut through the masses of information out there and find the bits that work for me and my hens.

I’ve learned so much from my readers! I learn from what you know and what you don’t. Asking me questions gets me to delve deeper into the resources I have, and to find more. It makes me more observant. One of the pleasures of backyard chicken keeping is getting to know the animals in my care. The more you ask, the more I see.

So, what question haven’t I answered yet?

(BTW, I’ve got FAQs here. I need to add to them. Broodiness is next! What else?)

What I do for my goats. Or, rather, what I pay others to do for my goats. I live in New England. I’ve got some big rocks on my property. Sadly, for the goats, none were in their pasture. So, last week, I had the crew from Rudy’s come and fix that.

It took three guys with a bobcat to get the job done.

The goats immediately tried out the new play space. Doesn’t everyone look happy?

Pip and Caper have a sturdy, permanent paddock fence. Beyond that is a small meadow, filled with things that goats love, like brambles and vines, ferns and sprouting acorns. That’s one of the wonderful things about goats – they clear an area of weeds before they touch the “good” grasses. Goats are very effective at keeping the margins of fields mowed down to the stone walls. I use electric poultry netting to keep them in. It’s easy to move, and I change it around frequently so that they can get to the brambles, but not overgraze. The goats quickly learned to respect this fence. They don’t like being zapped. But, they’re not scared of it. They get up quite close in order to nibble their favorite plants.

It’s always a good idea to check your electric fencing to make sure that it’s working. I haven’t done that recently, but, obviously, Pip has. Pip decided that the grass really is greener on the other side. Despite the fact that almost all of his 45 pounds is big belly, he managed to ooze under the fence. All goats have this superpower of being able to warp the rules of physics. I was outside and saw him do it and yet I’m still not sure how he squeezed through. My next goat will be named Quicksilver.

The goats are now in the paddock. The gate to the meadow is closed. The goats are lying next to it, chewing their cuds, looking innocent. But, they’ve never, ever laid there before. I know what they’re doing. They’re contemplating their great escape. I’d bet my money on them.

(PS There’s no photo. I was too busy wrangling goats.)

Those of us with only a few backyard hens appreciate each and every egg that our girls lay. As daylight lengthens and the weather warms, our younger hens lay an egg a day. For a while we bask in the riches. And then it stops. One hen, or two, or more go broody. They huff up, they sit in their nesting boxes, in bad temper and they stop laying eggs. Instead of having cartons of eggs in the fridge, and the resulting “problem” of what to do with them, (will it be a custard? bread pudding? frittata?) there is an egg shortage. On top of that, the pleasant, chuck-chuckling hen that you enjoy being around has turned into henzilla.

Chickens bred for modern production facilities don’t go broody. I’ve never had a hybrid go broody. However, at one time, before modern hatcheries, farmers needed a few broody hens in order to get chicks. A farmer could even sell a broody hen to her neighbor for a premium. If you keep heritage breeds of chickens, you’ll probably have at least one broody hen in the lot. And you’ll wish that she’d snap out of it.

You’ll know when your hen is broody. She claims a nesting box and keeps everyone else out. She stops laying eggs. She’ll fluff up her feathers and look twice her size. She’ll pull out some of her breast feathers – if she had a clutch of eggs to hatch, her bare skin would keep them warm.

Here is Twinkydink, showing broody behavior. Notice how she is hunkered down and her feathers are strewn about.

Typically, a hen will stay broody for almost a month. If she had fertile eggs to hatch, she’d be on the nest for 21 days. But chickens don’t count and the time they spend broody is variable. Some persistent hens will stay broody all summer, which makes the chicken keeper mutter things like “useless bird!” when doing coop chores.

Some people give in to their hen’s hormonal drives and put fertile eggs under her. Some people don’t mind having fewer eggs and just leave her alone until one day she pops out of the nesting box and resumes her normal daily routine. Other chicken keepers try to break the broody cycle.

I’ve heard of people who put a bags of frozen peas under their hens. This brings down the body temperature and supposedly stops the broodiness. I haven’t tried that. I have tried isolating a broody hen in a wire crate, in a cool, shady place. After two or three days of this, her body temperature falls back to normal and she forgets about the nesting box. I did this when Coco went broody. As soon as she got in the crate (notice there’s food and water) she looked like a normal, laying hen. She was active, sleek and cheerful.

Three days later, I put her back in the coop and she immediately became broody again.

I would give up, except she’s so intimidated the Polish hens, that they’ve started laying their eggs on the coop floor. I found one broken, and one here:

So, today I have put the two broody hens, Coco and Lulu, out in the goat paddock. They’ll pace the fence to get back to their nests, but I’m going to ignore them until the other hens have had a chance to lay their eggs in the boxes. I’m hoping to get five eggs today. I’d like to make chocolate pudding.

Chickens lay eggs in nesting boxes. At least they should. Some hens lay eggs on the ground. Some, especially free-ranged birds, hide their eggs in all sorts of odd places, but most hens simply want a safe cubbyhole to lay their egg in, and then go back to their day’s work of eating, bathing, and scratching.

Nesting boxes can be homemade or store-bought, made of sheet metal, plastic or wood. As a rule of thumb, you need a nesting box for every three hens. This is in theory. I have six nesting boxes for the seven hens that live in the HenCam coop. They are the right size – about a foot square. They have roosts in front so the chickens can get easily in and out. They are all bedded with the same shavings. But, this is what happens:

Lulu and Coco are broody. They are huffy. They are in bad moods. They both want the same real estate.

This is what happens when I take Lulu out and try to get her to think about going in different nesting box.

Notice the dramatic body language. She is making staccato clucking sounds. She is trying to stare down little Betsy. (Betsy will win this round. In the coop, it’s not always size that matters. Sometimes it’s attitude.)

Meanwhile, Tina would like to lay her egg. She didn’t lay one yesterday – I think she was too intimidated by the angry broody girls. There’s an empty nesting box on the left, and three down below. But she wants the middle one. She’s thinking through whether it’s worth going for. She ultimately, and with great resignation, decides to sit in the left box.

Tina doesn’t even consider laying an egg in the bottom boxes. It’s too sunny. A nesting box should be slightly dark and safe. Only the clueless hens lay in the blue boxes.

Getting back to that rule of thumb about one box for every three hens – if you have only three hens, and two are broody, and you have only one nest, well, you can see how that won’t work. So, the revised suggestion is one box for three hens IF you have a large flock. But, if you have only a few birds, and those are heritage breeds which are likely to go broody, then have three nesting boxes per five hens. And don’t site the boxes in the morning sun.