How to Stop a Broody Hen 

Broodiness happens. It’s a natural part of raising chickens, especially in the spring and summer months. But if you don’t want to hatch eggs or just want to make sure you aren’t stuck with a grumpy, growly broody hen, there are some steps you can take to break a broody. 

Sometimes, stopping a hen from being broody is referred to as breaking a broody hen. But don’t despair – none of these techniques will hurt your chicken! We don’t actually ever break chickens. We just help them to stop being broody. 

Egg Management 

The easiest way to stop a broody hen is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Usually, a hen will gather up a whole clutch of eggs before she goes broody. This number just depends on the individual hen. Some chickens only need a couple of eggs to go broody, whereas others want ten or more! I once had a hen who stole ALL of the eggs and tried to sit on two dozen at a time. 

So, to prevent your hen from getting broody, make sure you are managing your eggs well. That means collecting eggs at least once a day, every day. Collecting them in the late morning or early afternoon is preferable, but this isn’t possible for everyone. Just do the best you can to make sure all of the eggs are removed each day. 

This will keep your hen from gathering a clutch, which will discourage her from getting broody. 

Remove Access to the Nesting Area

Another way to discourage a hen who has gone broody is to remove her access to the nesting box. If the weather is cooperative, you can keep her from going into the coop during the day (just make sure to lock her up at night as you usually would to ensure her safety).  

If this isn’t possible, you could block access to the nest boxes. Close them off with a piece of plywood, or fill them up with empty buckets or anything harmless that you can find. If your hen can’t get into her nesting spot, it might stop her from being broody. 

Of course, if you try this method, you’ll want to keep a close eye on where she goes. If she can’t get in her nest boxes, she might find an alternate place to nest. She may gather her eggs in a shed, bush, clump of flowers, or even in an old tire. She might ‘disappear’ and not come back until she’s hatched out her eggs. But this is risky if there are predators in your area. 

Put Her On a Chicken Vacation

Another way to break your broody hen is to put her on vacation. If you’ve tried other methods and they just don’t work, you might want to put her on a chicken vacation (a.k.a broody jail). 

In other words, you’ll need to isolate her for a few days. This isn’t a punishment, just a change to get her out of the broody mindset. 

Ideally, you’ll put her in a cage separate from the other hens. Put the cage somewhere safe, such as a basement or garage, where she won’t get too hot or cold. You’ll also need to make sure she has plenty of fresh food and water at her disposal and enough room to move around. You can also offer her Avaplex® during this time to help manage any stress.

Keeping her separated and away from the nest boxes for a couple of days should be enough to change her mind about raising babies and sitting on eggs.   

Help Her to Chill 

If none of these work, there is one more method that might help break your broody. You need to change her body temperature. 

This is a little bit more extreme and must be done carefully. You’ll want to give her a bath in cool water. 

Some people will put ice packs in the nest box so that it is cold when she goes to sit on her eggs, while others will just bathe their hen in cool water. But be very careful because you don’t want her to get too cold or get frostbite from an ice pack.  

If it is already cold outside, you’ll need to do this in the house where it’s warmer, and don’t let her go back outside until she is completely dry. 
Having a broody hen – or multiple broody hens – can be challenging and frustrating when you don’t want any baby chicks (or crankiness in your flock crew). But in most cases, you can carefully and lovingly break the broodiness when you aren’t looking to grow your flock.