Breaking a Brooding Chicken

This time of year is when you will have hens "go broody."  This means that your once well-behaved, lay-an-egg-a-day, mild-mannered chicken changes into something completely different.  She sits in a nesting box for hours on end.  She fluffs up her feathers and growls (yes, chickens can growl) at you whenever you come near.  She stops laying eggs and instead protects whatever eggs she may have under her.  Sometimes, other hens will sit in the box with her and lay new eggs to add to her "clutch."  When you reach for the eggs, she will peck at you.  Hard.  And if you do manage to steal the eggs out from under her and throw her out into the yard to get a drink, she runs around with her wings out and her hackles up clucking at everyone, as if they care what she's doing.
If you raise chickens for eggs, it can be bothersome to have a hen go broody because it means that she will not be laying for the duration of her "condition."  There are lots of theories on how to break a broody chicken out of her desire to hatch eggs.  Most of them include cooling the chicken's belly off.  This is because broody hens increase the temperature that they radiate from below.  I think this may be why they wait until the weather warms up for brooding...it makes staying warm easier (although you'll always have the nutcase chicken who tries to hatch babies in the dead of winter).  You can try ice cubes in her nest.  You can dunk her belly in cool water (as long as it's warm outside, so she doesn't catch a cold).  My method is to use a dog crate or rabbit cage.  I call it the "brooding box."

When I have a hen start to brood and I am not interested in chicks, I relocate that hen to a crate or cage without any bedding.  No straw, no shavings, no towel.  Nothing.  I give her a waterer and a feeder.  The amount of time that she must stay in solitary is completely up to her, but it usually takes three or four days.  I can tell she's ready to come out when she doesn't react to me reaching in for her food or water.  If I accidentally misread the signs and let her out too early...I'll know because she'll go back to the nesting boxes.  In that case, she gets a few more days in solitary.  NEVER would I recommend withholding food or water from a chicken.  She will get over it but she needs to keep up her strength.