Broody Vs. Egg-Bound Debaucle

What a day last Friday was. Ilana, one of our Buff Orpingtons, had been out of sorts for a few days. First I noticed that she was taking longer than usual to lay her eggs. Then I noticed that she was hardly leaving the nest. Then fear struck. I got concerned that she was egg-bound because our other Buff Orpington, Avigal, had laid that huge egg. What if poor little Ilana just couldn't pass one of those dinosaur eggs? It became a tug of war. I would pull her out of the nest. She would puff up, just furious with me, hunch over and do this extremely weird squat, and then run back to the nest. I would attempt to coax her out with her favorite treats, and she would just scream at me from the nest with what I call the maniacal chicken look when one has disturbed a hen in the midst of laying an egg. Okay, now panic was setting in. Remember, this is my first go with raising chickens.

Around 4 a.m. Friday morning, I realize that Ilana's not sleeping with the other chickens. She's still in the nest. I begin poring over my chicken forum entries, hoping for a very simple treatment to cure her egg-bound state. It seems like I have 2 choices. The first involves a latex glove, olive oil or Vaseline, and reaching into parts of a chicken's body I really don't care to ever reach into. The other involves placing her in a tub full of warm-hot water to try and soften up those parts I don't want to reach into so the egg can pass. I decide to keep reading forum entries and drink another cup of coffee.

Now it's daylight. I go out to the backyard to check on her, and there my little Ilana is, still in the nest, and still furious with me for even thinking about bothering her. I come back in the house to mull over the idea of finding a livestock vet in the area over a third cup of coffee, but I know Ilana will never forgive me if I do this. So I decide the tub is the answer. How am I going to get enough warm-hot water outside in a container big enough to put the chicken in by myself? Mickey's got to leave for work and, to be honest, if I told him what I wanted to do he'd probably call the little men with white coats to come and get me. I Facebook message 3 chicken-owner friends and ask them what to do. I wait an hour. No one's answering me. My stomach is in knots, but I know I have to do something. Chickens can die from being egg-bound and if one of my girls is going to die, I want to know I've done everything I can to have tried to save her.

I drag a big white Igloo cooler to the bathroom and put it in the bathtub. I fill it with warm-hot water as the chicken forum has instructed me to do. I go and get my precious Ilana, who is not too happy that I've disturbed her again, pick her up, bring her in the house, making sure I've locked the dogs outside so they can't scare her, and plop her in the cooler. There she stands. I expect a major ruckus with lots of squawking and wings flapping. Nothing of the sort. She stands in the water, looking around the bathroom rather satisfied, with a face that says, "Wait till I tell the other girls what I got to do." I sit on the lidded toilet seat next to her and chat away until the requisite 30 minutes is up. She seems quite happy and content. I towel her off and start to dry her feathers with a blow dryer when I realize that the heat outside will dry her faster than I ever can. I bring her back outside, where she eats and drinks a bit, and then runs straight back to the nest. I pray for an egg to come.

I come back inside and check my messages, and there are fast and furious questions coming in from my chicken friends. Does Ilana have diarrhea? No. Did she make a really big poop? Yes, thankfully in the cooler and not elsewhere in the house. Does she have feathers under her comb? Yes. Is this the same hen that laid the huge egg? No. After I answered all the questions, the consensus was that my little Ilana was just broody as hens are wont to do. She wanted to hatch some babies.

And what to do to fix a broody hen? Well, we're back to 2 possibilities. I could get some fertilized eggs and let her hatch them, or I could remove her from the nest and separate her so she has no access to anything that looks like an egg. Goodness knows we don't need any more chickens at the moment. Heck, we've got 11, more than enough for this beginning urban homestead. So I reached into the nest, totally infuriating my broody hen, and pulled out the golf ball that lay beneath her. About 2 hours later, she left the nest, still angry at me, and joined the other girls for an evening snack before heading off to bed next to the air conditioner compressor (their normal sleeping spot these days). Now I've just got to wait for her hormones to settle back down so she'll start laying eggs again.

Some quick broody versus egg-bound facts: A broody hen will do everything in her power not to leave the nest, including not leave to go to the bathroom. When she does leave the nest to poop, it will be one heck of a big poop. An egg-bound hen will have diarrhea and it will mess up the nest. A broody hen walks just fine if you can get her out of the nest to walk. An egg-bound hen has trouble walking. An ex-broody hen can take 2 weeks or more to start laying eggs again. An egg-bound hen can die within 2-4 days if not helped.

My lesson: Don't jump to dire conclusions. Go with the easier, simpler diagnosis first.