1 40 PO UL TR T~ CRAFT. 



186. About Broody Hens. When hens are kept principally for egg 

 production, frequent and persistent broodiness is a bad fault, and should be 

 culled and bred out of the stock. Broodiness at long intervals and easily 

 broken up, is rather an advantage than otherwise, for it gives the hens 

 occasional short complete rests from laying. It is noticeable that hens 

 of the non-sitting varieties lay less while moulting than hens of sitting 

 varieties; the latter if well fed, are apt to lay (a from 20% to 40% yield) 

 right through the moult. The non-sitters take one long rest; the sitters 

 several short rests. If it is desired to keep the hens laying as steadily as 

 possible, using none for incubation, they can be most easily broken of broodi- 

 ness and most quickly brought to laying again by confining them with a 

 reserve male in a pen from which the nests have been removed. On a large 

 plant, one, two, or more pens are, during the spring and summer, needed for 

 hens undergoing the process of breaking up. The broody hens should be 

 well fed. To break up broodiness promptly, and bring them to laying with- 

 out delay, two objects must be attained, viz. : the hens must forget about 

 incubating ; they must be kept in good condition. Confinement in coops, as 

 described in 1T57 is, on the whole, slower and less effective than penning 

 with other broody hens and a male. In the pens the hens can be got to lay- 

 ing again in four or five days, sometimes, and it rarely takes longer than ten 

 days, unless they are badly out of condition. This method is not always 

 practicable in small yards. Starving to break up broodiness, is a cruel remedy 

 not more effective than simple removal from nests, and certain to postpone 

 much longer the resumption of laying. 



187. The Cause of Broodiness. Sick Hens Going Broody. The 



condition of the hen is sometimes supposed to determine the time of broodi- 

 ness even to cause broodiness, some asserting that whether hens are 

 sitters or non-sitters, is merely a question of diet. Many think a fat hen goes 

 broody. It is quite a common practice to feed grain heavily to induce broodi- 

 ness. This method fails as often as it succeeds. There is nothing in the 

 "fat hen theory" of broodiness further than that, if a hen has the sitting 

 instinct well developed, she will, in the breeding season, go broody when she 

 stops laying, whether she stops because : too fat, too poor, or SICK. Com- 

 plaints of sitting hens dying on their nests are numerous every season. 

 Sometimes a poultry keeper reports his sitting hens as nearly all dying 

 mysteriously during the period of incubation. Such hens are mostly sick 

 when set ; though broody, their actions are so different from those of healthy 

 broody hens, that after two or three experiences with them a poultry keeper 

 who is as observant as he ought to be, will not make the error of setting 

 them when they ought to go to the hospital. Broodiness is hereditary and 

 constitutional. If a hen comes of non-sitting stock, heavy feeding will force 

 egg production or will fatten it will not cause broodiness. 



