The Inglorious Incarceration of Little Miss Broody Pants Day 1

There’s been a major upset in the hen yard and it’s called Little Miss Broody Pants: The Cranky Hen. For a week she’s hogged the nesting box entirely for herself and has disallowed egg deposits to the point where the Ladies have had it up to their combs with her nonsense and started pecking out her feathers. Extracting her from the box threw her into a full-on tizzy and letting her sit meant the other hens were laying eggs all over the place. Not to mention the danger of Little Miss Broody Pants becoming dehydrated [or starving] while she waited for a clutch of unfertilized eggs to hatch.

This was becoming a problem of diabolical proportions.

According to World Wide Web the best way to snap a persistently broody hen back to her senses is to completely eliminate the opportunity to nest. No bedding whatsoever for at least three days. I bee-lined to the nesting box and took a hard look at Miss Broody Pants.

“You’re not going to like this but it’s for your own good.” I told her.

“You’re upsetting my children,” she replied.

I unearthed the dog kennel from the back corner of the garage and parked it under the maple in the hen yard. A stick through the bars for a roost; an old plastic dish zip-tied to the sidebars for water; a flowerpot to the other side for chick chow. I returned to the nesting box.

“You don’t have children,” I said and scooped her out before she knew what hit her.

Word of Broody Pants’ trip to the slammer spread through the flock like wild fire. Hens came running from the farthest regions to gawk. Even The Dog stood outside the fence with her mouth hanging open, horrified by the reappearance of that old kennel and unable to believe what I had just done.

Gathering ’round for an impolite gawk.

Broody stood motionless in her cell with her beak high. “You can’t keep me locked up forever,” she whispered, defiant. “My people will mobilize.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, BP. I’m afraid you burned that bridge days ago.” I walked sadly away while the girls made loud snarky comments about restored order and how long overdue it was for certain hens to learn their place in the yard.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen…

  
   To be continued…