Silkie hens just love to sit on eggs, even when they don't have any eggs to sit on!  This can be a really good thing, since there hasn't been an incubator made that can rival a good broody hen.  But if the hen in question is a valuable hen that you want lots of chicks from, and you are plan to hatch using an incubator,  broodiness can put a real crimp in your plans.  When a hen goes broody, she stops laying and sits. She will usually sit for at least 3 weeks, although some silkies will sit for months if they are really into it.  The broody hen is not going to lay any more eggs as long as she is sitting.

Arguing with a broody hen is an exercise in futility.  She is on a mission to brood and hatch her eggs, even if she is just sitting on shavings or dirt.   But there are ways of helping her change her mind. 

We have tried a number of methods to break up broody hens, with varying degrees of success.   The experienced "old-timer" chicken folks told me to suspend a wire bottomed cage, so it would sway with movement and air could flow all around it.  Put the hen in the cage with no bedding, and water only for the first day.  On the second day, add food, and by the 4th day, the hen should no longer be broody. 

That method might work with other breeds, but our silkies were just more determined, and were still broody on the 4th day.    Some of our hens did come out of broody behavior within 8-12 days using this method, but as our silkie population grew, we just didn't have enough room for hanging cages! 

We also tried changing the hen's environment daily, putting her in an outside pen, then in a wire cage at night, in a run the next morning, etc., but that also got to be a lot of work as more hens went broody.

This year we have stumbled on a method that seems to work consistently with little stress to the hen and not a lot of effort on our part.  It's a definite compromise, since we allow the hen a week to be broody. After one week, she spends a day in an outside pen, then is moved to a large wire bottomed cage.  There may be 3 or 4 other broody hens sharing the wire bottomed cage.  There is plenty of food and water in the cage, and when the hen is moving around for most of the day and no longer sitting, she gets moved back to an individual cage until she begins to lay again. Then she goes back to a breeding pen, or is bred using AI.

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