Abandoned new chick!

[Itschloe238]

Hello, I have 4 hens who have 20 baby chick and we look in there cage and saw that a chick was hatching and nobody was sitting on it so we tried to make the hen sit on the egg but it wouldn't. So we took it inside and warned it up with are hands. Tin was almost done hatching so we thought we should bring it outside and put it back with Its mommies. When we saw that 1 hen was sitting on eggs we thought that it would sit on this one. When we went to put it under the hen it pecked the egg and causing it to fall out of its shell. We thought this was a hen doing its job, helping it come out of its shell. But when we picked the baby up to put it under, the hen pecked it viciously, like a piece of food. So we took it inside cleaned off the blood and we warmed her up.

Know she is moving and breathing. We have her under a heat lamp for the night.

Will the chickens ever exspect her? Was she pecking her for any reason?

Thank you

 

[Smoochie]

I had three chicks get rejected from a mom. Unfortunately another mom in the coop killed one of the chicks. I took away the other two rejected chicks and have them in the garage under heat lamp. It probably is a good thing to keep it separated as it's injured however the likelihood of returning back the coop until it's feathered is low as it will probably be rejected by all the moms. Maybe once it has healed take another baby for you to raise so it has company. Chickens get lonely…

 

[Itschloe238]

We're hoping that when its fluffy that it will blend in with the rest.

 

[newmarch2014]

I agree with above, hand raising it and taking another of the chicks for company is important. Once the chicks are big enough to start integrating then put them in a dog kennel or some other safe enclosure each day next to or in with the others so that they have plenty of time to get used to then newbies where they are safe and then when everyone seems to ignore them then supervise the introductions carefully.

 

[azygous]

What you need to do is what newmarch says, place the rejected chicks with a few others in a safe enclosure, but within the coop or run so they will be seen as part of the flock. If you modify the dog crate by removing the door and rigging some hardware cloth over the opening with a small chick-size entrance, it can double as a panic room when you begin integration of these chicks in a few weeks.

If you aren't familiar with the panic room system of integration, see my article linked below this post on outdoor brooding.

 

[farmgirllvo]

Also try putting the new chick in at night when the other hens are asleep, they will wake up in the morning and think they are a part of the flock, they will still have to learn pecking order once there back in, but it should be ok once it's older and can fend for itself.