by J. M.

Created on: April 24, 2008   Last Updated: April 25, 2008

Have you had difficulties with clucky hens? These are the ones that constantly want to sit on eggs and hatch babies on babies! What a nightmare this can be. You don't want to be inundated with more hens than you can handle and sometimes clucky hens can be sitting on a dozen eggs or more. This reduces the free range hen's laying potential, because the eggs are stolen by the clucky hen and because the other hens tend to lay less eggs.

Hens tend to go clucky through the Spring months. Clucky is the term used for when the hens sit on eggs and attempt to hatch them. Clucky hens can sit for weeks and weeks until they have babies and then until the babies are off the nest. Some very maternal hens go through continual cycles of cluckiness.

It's not healthy for a hen to be clucky continually. Hens can overheat, or refuse to eat and they may well die if they don't get off the nest after a while. Remember that even hens with infertile eggs will attempt to hatch them. Most hens need some help to get over being clucky, otherwise they will continue to yearn to hatch.

We try to limit our hens to one hatch each Spring and we limit the eggs they sit on. This reduces the risk of a large number of chickens that may be too much for the hen to care for. It also means that we do not have too many chickens to care for, once the babies grow up. We usually limit the number of eggs under a hen to about three.

Once a hens is clucky and we decide to let her have chicks, we take the eggs that will end up hatching and we mark them in permanent pen with an X. Then when we check the hens each morning, we pull out the unmarked eggs - so that the hen does not claim more eggs than the original three.

If a hen goes clucky and you want her to stop, remove the hen from the nest and put it into a smaller cage in the run. The cage we use is a smaller wooden cage with a tin roof which is protected from the rain. It sits low, so the hen can sit on the ground. We isolate it with chicken wire from the other hens and allow it to sit on the dirt ground until it gets over it's wish to sit on eggs. Usually we only need to isolate it for 24 - 48 hours. The we release it back to the other hens and generally it has lost its urge to sit.

Make sure your clucky hen has plenty of fresh water and food. Sitting on eggs all day takes lots of energy, so make sure that the hen does not overheat.

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