It's the jail-box for you, Miss Violet!

Yep, my blue cochin girl, Violet, has got raging hormones... again!! Third time in less than two months! Gooaaaaahhhh! Stinkin' broodiness!

She's on PMS, folks!
Grrrrr baby grrrr!

Stink eye: she gots it!

So, when a hen goes broody* she walks around puffed up like a feather duster, makes deep-throated cluck-cluck-cluck noises which turn to high-pitched screeches if another girl approaches her (Oh don't you DARE get close to me, bitch, na-hah!), she won't get out of the nesting boxes, she stops laying eggs but tries to steal everyone else's - and this can last for weeks on end if not... corrected.

The fastest and most humane way to snap those hormones back in place?

Jail. Yep, sad but true.

You build a small cage with a wire bottom and let the silly hen fester in there for three to five days with nothing but food and water. No free-ranging, no cozy nest, no bedding - just cold air hitting her butt 24/7. Stubborn cases take up to a week but Violet's hormones have been re-set twice before in about five days... I hope this time isn't longer, it makes me feel like such a crappy mom :-/

The cherry on the cake? Broodiness is contagious. When one sets off you can bet your cracked egg there'll be another one or two in the lot whose hormones also go bezerk.

I have a lineup waiting for that jail box!

*going broody: hormones dictating that it's time to sit on a clutch of eggs until chicks are born, which takes weeks!

I need this hen! LOL

That's it for today's drahma... Besides my mean roo Casper nearly biting one of my fingers off as I refilled his food last night - yey for garden gloves - little does that little bastard know that bite cost his sale price to drop by half!

Anybody want to buy a huge, biting roo for $5???

*crossing fingers and toes that someone responds to my online ads! PLEASE!*

Happy Thursday!

-Technodoll aka Mother Hen With Zero Tolerance For Mean Birds