- Mar 4, 2007
- 73
- 3
- 31
Here I am - I just joined and am new at the "chicken thing". So please be patient - I'm a newbie. I have a "broody" hen - and at first I didn't know what was wrong with her - she chose a place in my hay aisle and just started sitting. Didn't lay any eggs, just sat there. Every morning I'd carry her out to the chicken pen and put her down so she would eat/drink with the rest, but then she'd be right back in the same place again, not budging until the next morning when I'd carry her out again. I bought a chicken handbook and that's when I learned she was probably a "broody hen". So I took a few eggs that the other hens were laying - not thinking they were fertile (the rooster is still young, the same age as the hens) - and put them under her. Well, three hatched!!!! In the middle of February, in PA!!!! I asked around on some of my horse-lists and was told that the hen would keep them warm enough. First I brought the hen and chicks into my office and put them in a dog crate, it was much warmer in there - but boy did she stink up the office! Can't tell chickens smell that bad when they are outside
So now that it's a little warmer, the family is back in the hay aisle, where I let them out of the crate during the day and shut them in at night, just in case the barn cats get interested in the chicks. All seems to be well, so far.
ps my "flock" of chickens were hatched in an incubator - I got them all the day they hatched, and raised them in a big container with heat lamp. So these are my first "hen raised" peeps. Pretty neat! And they aren't even her babies -
molly
So now that it's a little warmer, the family is back in the hay aisle, where I let them out of the crate during the day and shut them in at night, just in case the barn cats get interested in the chicks. All seems to be well, so far.
ps my "flock" of chickens were hatched in an incubator - I got them all the day they hatched, and raised them in a big container with heat lamp. So these are my first "hen raised" peeps. Pretty neat! And they aren't even her babies -
molly