How Do You Handle A Broody Hen?

One of the Squatter Twins has been overcome by a deep desire to set.  She will set on nothing.  She will set on one egg.  She will set on broken eggs.  This could not be allowed to continue.  (Just for reference, these are non-fertile eggs.) 

I've had this problem with her before, and tried various methods of 'breaking her up'.  Ice cubes underneath her?  I think she rather enjoyed it, but she certainly didn't budge.  Putting her in a space away from the other hens?  She could not have cared less.  Rousting her every hour or so?  She would just go back. 

This year I have tried a new tactic.  Dipping.  Yes, I pick her up and dip her in a bucket of water.  It serves two purposes:  It cleans all the broken egg goo off her belly and it upsets her badly. 

She's been out in the yard for fifteen minutes clucking her irritated cluck at me and 'floofing' up her feathers. 

"Why the nerve of some people!"  says Squatter Twin Number One.

"It'll take me hours to fix these feathers!  Hours!"

On a more earthy note, the garden is getting stripped in preparation for a mid-August planting.  I took down the last of the corn today and composted it.  The beds look positively 'nekkid.'

 

The only things left are the tomatoes, the one square of lavender, and one lonely pumpkin. 

Sad little pumpkin.  Don't you worry.  Soon I will make you into a pie and your purpose in life will be fulfilled.