Help! Can I move all the eggs and new chicks from 2 hens to 1 hen?

bbell

Hatching
7 Years
May 31, 2012
3
0
7
I've got 2 hens on eggs, in a little separate area. 2 babies hatched this morning, I'm waiting on 8 more eggs. I'm wondering about moving the eggs, and the chicks, all under one hen, and taking out the 2nd hen, just for a little more room for the mama and babies in the pen. I want to leave them in there for a bit before I move them out to the rest of the flock. What do you think? This is our first time hatching babies.
 
yes, you can do that, I have done it before also when I had a hen that started eating her chicks as they were born
sickbyc.gif
. It has to be the hen that had the chicks hatched under her usually though as the other hen may not accept them. The main downside to this is trying to get the hen you remove to stop being broody...she will probably go nuts trying to get back into the nest box. The other thing I have done before (this works if you know and trust your broody hen) is to remove the chicks from under her as they hatch and bring them in the house into a brooder and let the hens keep sitting on the rest of the eggs until they have all hatched. I have done this when the hatching times of the eggs have been stretched out over a week because otherwise the hens will leave the eggs when the hatched chicks are old enough to need to eat. Then I return all the chicks to her at night once the eggs have hatched. Or you could let her hatch as many as she will stay on and then put the unhatched eggs under the other broody.
 

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