A broody hen lays less eggs

Earn more out of your native chicken.

How? When you observe broodiness in your fowls, break the behavior right away so that they will lay more eggs.

Broodiness (naglilimlim), a native hen’s characteristic, limits egg production. After laying a clutch of 10 to 12 eggs, native hens develop and show broody behavior, indicating readiness to incubate and hatch their eggs.

The hens’ broody period extends to 1-1.5 months after hatching.

“During the broody period, native hens do not lay eggs,” PCARRD pointed out. “Hence, the longer the broody period is, the fewer eggs are produced.”

Statistics show that native plus improved chickens constitute 54 percent of the country’s poultry population of approximately 135 million.

An adult native hen lays an average of 105 eggs a year.

To break broodiness, PCARRD advised that hens should be bathed in cold water as soon as natural incubation is completed and the chicks are separated from the mother hens. After bathing, the hens should be kept in well-lighted pens and fed ad libitum (without limit) with high-protein poultry ration until the broody behavior is no longer observed.

Broody behavior can be broken in four to seven days, after which the hen is again let loose in the range to resume laying eggs.

“Hens subjected to this treatment lay the succeeding clutch of eggs in one to two weeks after the treatment or two to three weeks earlier than those not subjected to the treatment,” PCARRD concluded.      — Rudy A. Fernandez