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Fedora my lovely little black Araucana hen laid an egg for us today!

This is not her first egg so why am I so excited?

She has been broody for weeks!

Broody (as in the expression “Madder than a broody hen.”) is when a chicken decides she wants to be a mommy.

She lays a little clutch of eggs and hunkers down to hatch them out.

Best case scenario 21 days later – she has babies.

However, my little hens didn’t do a very good job of taking care of their eggs (Hey – they’re new at this!) so none of their eggs developed and I removed them from their nests.

Did this stop them from sitting in the nesting box all day long trying to achieve motherhood? Oh No. Not at all.

They remind me of that story – the little engine that could – because they think they can, but the truth is that they can’t.

So, despite my best efforts to convince them to move off their nests and go about their happy hen ways – they’ve sat still for weeks.

That expression “madder than a broody hen” probably started because they scream and protest loudly if you try to move them from their nesting box. Some hens (I’ve heard – my girls are sweeties.) try to even peck at your hands.

However, after all this time sitting around on nothing I’m starting to think this expression has a dual meaning… as in…