Ended 2013 Easter Hatch-a-long Contest #6 "Broodies and Their Babies!!!"

ENTRY #1


This is my Bantam Cochin hen, Molly with her freshly hatched EE baby.

Old English Game Bantam and her two chicks


Wyandotte with 1 of the 4 icelandics that she hatched out for the Easter Hatch-A-Long

Earlene the Showgirl with her Silkie babies

Entry #1

Entry #2

Nicole teaching her babies about wonderful things to eat...

I sorted through over two thousand photos that I've taken since the eggs began hatching, and selected these two, plus two extra for you to enjoy and illustrate this year's broody hen "story" .

The story behind these photos is that I hatched 46 chicks for the Easter Hatch-a-Long, and gave them all to three broody hens.


Lydia the Patridge Chantecler (1 yr old) is a first-time mom, but has tried several times to go broody. When she went broody again right before the set date, I moved her into a dog crate & put 10 eggs under her. When the incubator chicks hatched and dried, I gave her a few chicks and took her eggs and put them in the incubator to finish. She didn't like that, so I gave her 5 eggs that had already pipped. Once they hatched, she entered the "mothering" stage and has been in her glory ever since!




The second broody hen is Daisy (2 yrs) - she has already raised two broods last year, the second of which she adopted 8 meat chicks and raised them to be very active. In fact, some of these chicks that just hatched are offspring of the chicks that she raised last year. (1 Freedom Ranger pullet & roo; "Michael Jessie" - Blue Andalusian/Easter Egger rooster - the dad to many of these chicks)
So, Daisy hatched one chick herself and adopted all the other incubator babies without a problem. She is a "super mom"!






These following photos are NOT entered in the contest, but to illustrate the rest of the "story".

The third broody hen, Pearl, a 1 year old Rhode Island White, decided to go broody on March 30th, so I quickly "corraled" her into service.
I gave her one of the hatched chicks, one pipped egg, and three fake eggs. She remained broody despite being moved from the nesting box to a kitty litter box and immediately receiving a chick on the first day! Then, yesterday (4/1), I gave her 4 more chicks, which she also accepted. This morning I moved her to a plastic dog crate, with food and water, and she drank water while staying huddled to keep the chicks warm. I can't believe she's "working out", seeing that she only went broody a few days ago! But, she has been making the broody hen noises for months, and only now decided to actually sit on the eggs.





So, the other 40 chicks are being shared by Lydia and Daisy, who are getting along pretty well. (Except for first day or two when it was time to dust bath or they both tried to go under the hover brooder at the same time.) They each have a separate dog crate, but I found them together in one crate on 3/31. Because it's been getting down into the low 20's at night and only 30s to 40s during the day, and there's so many chicks for them to share, I do have a heat lamp bulb and last year's hover brooder set up. In the first picture, Lydia is also enjoying the extra warmth of the hover brooder, which has two 75 watt bulbs in it. It's still not the "prescribed temp" in the chicken tractor, but if they get extra chilly, they just go under one of the broody hens. They're both feeding and teaching the chicks new things every day, and the chicks will respond to whichever one calls. And wow the chicks are feathering out so much faster than other years! Some of the first chicks that hatched on 3/29 already have their primary and secondary flight feathers.





Don't you just love broody hens?

Don't tell her she's not their mom. Best little foster mom I've had. She has six chicks under her.

Momo and her two red sex link chicks. Both hens.

Not the best quality pics.... These are of black silchin "Bumblebee" with her chicks and fellow broodies. The 5 chicks were hatched by all three broodies: Bumblebee, Buff Silchin "stinky" and Cochin "Penguino"...