Don't worry about it...
Usually you can easily tell whether a chicken hatches or not. If she goes into the nest and doesn't come out and starts making a very strange noise while inflating herself like a football, she may be coming out of the nest. The sound they make is markedly different from the usual range of sounds and can range from something like a very deep chime-chime-chime, like horses walking on cobblestones, to a deafening screech! Another sign of broodiness is feather plucking, and your hen may start plucking them from her breast to prepare the nest for the eggs, resulting in an embarrassing bald spot on her belly. You'll also see a strange habit of picking up leaves, twigs, feathers and grass clippings and throwing them over her shoulders in an attempt to make her nest! A normally calm chicken can become aggressive and peck you if you try to move her, and the opposite can happen with a very flighty bird that suddenly makes you cuddle until the cows come home as soon as she hatches!
If you act quickly, you can ensure that she resumes laying much sooner. So try to limit her access to the nest if possible, although this is usually very difficult if you have other chickens trying to lay. When she sleeps in the nest you should encourage her to sleep on the perches so that there can be plenty of lovely fresh air circulating around her to keep her cool as she will be lovely and warm and cozy at night and this will only prolong cruelty. Placing a rock, an upside-down planter, a football, or even a garden ornament in the nest will prevent her from sleeping in it. However, don't forget to remove these during the day so that your other chickens can lay eggs. If possible, keep her out of the nest during the day. If you see her in the garden sitting on a nest made of leaves, twigs and feathers, make sure this is removed quickly and move her or entice her away with a treat.
Why is she Broody and what to do?
The urge to breed is usually caused by a rise in body temperature, so a quick cold bath will usually return her to normal and should stop the urge. Submerge the chicken's bottom and belly in a bucket of cold water until the feathers are soaked. You can do this several times a day. Continue soaking until she stops breeding, which may only take a few days depending on how long she has been breeding. It sounds terribly cruel, but they actually seem to find it soothing because they are so hot, bothered and angry that a cool bath makes them feel much more comfortable. Some people use an old towel to wrap an ice cube or fill a plastic bag with ice cubes and place them under the chicken in the nest, and the cold quickly drives them out of the nest. If your chickens run and she is determined to sit on the eggs at every opportunity, a trick we have used with our own chickens may work for her too. We partitioned off the end of the run for our broody chicken and put food and water in it. As soon as they woke up in the morning, we put her in there and kept her there until our other chickens had laid. Once they all did that, we removed the barrier, closed the door and let her socialize with the others. It took about a week to isolate her from the nest to break up the brood, but it worked and she has been fine ever since. If your chickens are free-range, it's even easier. You can make a separate run for her using a fruit burnet or chicken fencing and let her sit there with food and water until the others have gone to bed. Then you can let her out to join them.
You can let her sit outside if you like as it won't hurt her, but you won't get any eggs until she stops hatching, and if she's been sitting for a long time this could mean no eggs for several weeks afterwards . . If she stays in the litter, try to encourage her to get up once a day to eat, drink and go to the toilet. Brooding hens can lose a lot of body weight while sitting. It is important that you check her regularly for lice and mites as they tend to attack broody chickens as they do not vacuum and groom as regularly as they normally would. A severe red mite infestation can kill a brood. It is therefore also important to monitor the chicken carefully, as these mites live in crevices and corners of the chicken and not on the bird itself. If you happen to find one on her, you should remove any blind passengers by dusting it with a suitable powder or spray, repeated a week later, and there are several red mite treatments available to treat the garden. Once she loses her desire to sit, she will come out of the nest and start socializing again, and hopefully the eggs will come again.
Brody or sick?
A sick chicken can also give the false impression that she is broody, so keep in mind that she may not be feeling hormonal at all. A sick chicken looks absolutely miserable: head thrown back, eyes closed, shoulders hunched and tail drooping. They withdraw from the other chickens and look unhappy and lethargic. A laying hen or even a breeding hen should have a bright red comb, while a sick hen will be yellowish and drooping. If you are concerned that she is sick, it may be a good idea to take her to a vet to have her properly examined.
