A Detailed Guide to Methods for Waking Broody Silkie Chickens: Teaching You How to Properly Wake a Silkie Chicken

Silkie chickens have a strong brooding instinct, especially during the peak laying season. For every 15 eggs laid, brooding behavior will appear, showing specifically as loose feathers, elevated body temperature, reduced appetite, and gradual weight loss, and sometimes reduced egg production or even a complete stop, seriously affecting economic returns. So in order to improve economic returns, methods to wake them must be adopted. Let's take a look below.

Physical and Mechanical Methods

1. Starvation method

Confine the broody female silkie chicken in a relatively dark and damp place, such as a wooden box or chicken coop, and give it nothing to eat. Generally, after three days it can be let out, and the silkie chicken will no longer sit on the nest.

2. Soaking method

Put the broody silkie chicken into cold water and soak and wash it for a while, or place it in a chicken cage, then put the cage in a basin and add water to the basin until the water depth reaches the shank, so that it can only stand and cannot squat down, in order to lower body temperature and stimulate the nerves, which can have a waking effect.

3. Needling method

You can use an ordinary sewing needle found at home to pierce vertically into the acupoint on the sole of the chicken's foot (that is, the middle of the sole of the chicken's foot), to a depth of about 6mm, twist it left and right a few times, then after removing the needle disinfect the needle hole with alcohol, and then place the chicken in a dry area to avoid infection. Do this 1-2 times a day. This method is relatively simple, and after 1-2 times it can wake the chicken. If it has no effect, you can use the previous two methods.

4. Chicken feather through the nostrils method

Pull a chicken feather from the chicken's wing, pass the chicken feather through both nostrils of the chicken, and leave it in the nostrils for 3 to 5 days. After the silkie chicken is stimulated, it feels uneasy and will scratch at it with its claws, so it will no longer sit on the nest.

5. Changing nests

Put the broody chicken into a new flock. Because of the change in living environment and flock, this is also a kind of stimulation to the chicken, speeding up the hen's waking from brooding.

Chemical and Drug Methods

1. Feeding pain-relief tablets

On the evening of the first day the hen begins to sit on the nest, feed one pain-relief tablet. On the second day, feed another tablet. By the third day, if it is no longer broody, the medication can be stopped. If it is still broody on the third day, another 1 tablet can be given.

2. Oral aspirin

For each broody chicken, inject 1mL of 20% copper sulfate solution intramuscularly once a day for 4 to 5 consecutive days, to prompt its anterior pituitary to secrete hormones and enhance ovarian activity so that it no longer sits on the nest.

3. Traditional Chinese medicine waking

You can add rhubarb, borneol and diethylstilbestrol to cornmeal to make a paste and feed it to the chicken, which can wake it from the nest, or use the method of feeding wine and vinegar to make it drunk and sleepy; after it sobers up from the wine, it will wake from brooding.

The above is an introduction to methods for waking broody silkie chickens. We hope it can help you. To learn more related knowledge, please follow us.