Chicken Update--Our Broody Hen

The chicken adventure has been going pretty smoothly.  We even went out of town for 2 weeks and the girls seemed just fine with their babysitter. But the day after I got home, one of the hens insisted on sitting in the nesting box and hogged all the eggs in there.  I looked it up online and it seems that Hawk Eye is broody.  She thinks she has to incubate her, or anyone else's egg.  We purchased our hens to be layers, so to have one hen that won't lay an egg because she wants to sit on them 24/7 was a problem.  Back to the internet I went, and searched for a solution.  The solution from several sites was to put Ms. broody Hawk Eye in chicken jail. 

 The goal is to keep her from sitting on comfy shavings.  She spent all of day one by herself, but we let her back in the coop for sleeping.  During the day we gave her some alone time in the backyard as well to encourage foraging for bugs, etc.  She was really freaked out and paced back and forth along the main coop at first, but we didn't cave in to her begging, and she calmed down and acted like a non-broody hen.  After her night in the coop she was again hogging the nesting box and so she is currently in jail again for today.  The main problem was all of our hens like to lay in one specific box and they were picking on Hawk Eye because she wouldn't move.  This also lead to less egg layers.  It's a whole chicken drama! Using the chicken jail remedy, Hawk Eye should be cured in a few days, but she might not lay an egg for a week or so after.  Kind of a bummer!  But even though there has been drama and we are learning by trial and error, they are so fun to have and my kids really enjoy taking care of them.  I am also glad that we are learning all about chickens now and not in a survival situation.