Here's a question for anyone on here ho has chickens or has experience with them. Do chickens just become broody out of the blue? Or is it something they always do if they are going to do it?
One of my hens seems to be in the coop all the time now. In the nesting box sitting on an egg, and I always have to use a stick to get the egg because she doesn't seem to want me to get at it. Today I actually forced her out of the nesting box because I wanted to get a loser look because I was afraid she was getting sick. When I nudged her out to the more open part of the coop she just sat there, head lowered, butt higher and fluffed out. And she seems to have a different, constant, lower pitched cluck than normal.
I have also noticed in this time that my other hens seem to have stopped laying. For the last few days anyway. But I have been leaving the coop open to my yard 24/7 so they may all be laying somewhere out in the yard. But I have yet to find where, and I have done some pretty good looking. Including a corner of the yard where they always seem to be when I come through the gate.
Any ideas about the new behavior?