Can we put a one day old chick under a broody hen who has week old chicks?

[Fiddlefox]

We had two broody hens who were around a week apart in their incubation time. Hen #1’s chicks hatched about a week ago, and Hen #2 hatched two chicks this morning or earlier. Unfortunately, Hen #2 crushed one of her chicks and began attacking/pecking at the other one, so ultimately we removed the surviving chick from her care. Would it be alright to put the day old chick under hen #1 at night? Does anyone have any similar experiences/advice?

 

[Folly's place]

One week is a long time when they are that young, probably a bad idea. The newly hatched chick won't be able to keep up with the others.
Better to buy a couple of chicks and raise them separately, at least for now. Too bad about Hen #2!
Mary

 

[Fiddlefox]

One week is a long time when they are that young, probably a bad idea. The newly hatched chick won't be able to keep up with the others.
Better to buy a couple of chicks and raise them separately, at least for now. Too bad about Hen #2!
Mary

Thank you for the advice! Hen #2 is still incubating the remaining eggs, so hopefully she’ll react differently to those.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Thank you for the advice! Hen #2 is still incubating the remaining eggs, so hopefully she’ll react differently to those.

I would remove the eggs from her and incubate them yourself if you have an incubator. If it was just a crushed chick I'd say accidents do happen, but to attack a chick, no. It is highly likely she will do the same again.

 

[Fiddlefox]

I would remove the eggs from her and incubate them yourself if you have an incubator. If it was just a crushed chick I'd say accidents do happen, but to attack a chick, no. It is highly likely she will do the same again.

Ah, that’s a shame. Probably going to set up my incubator and transfer the eggs.


Thank you for the reply!

 

[KDawn02]

We had two broody hens who were around a week apart in their incubation time. Hen #1’s chicks hatched about a week ago, and Hen #2 hatched two chicks this morning or earlier. Unfortunately, Hen #2 crushed one of her chicks and began attacking/pecking at the other one, so ultimately we removed the surviving chick from her care. Would it be alright to put the day old chick under hen #1 at night? Does anyone have any similar experiences/advice?

I tried to put additional chicks under one of my hens about three days after I placed the initial chicks under her and she did not accept them. She pecked them out of her lay box and I had to put them in my brooder. Just my experience.

 

[Mark1234]

On the whole, the incubator is a lot more reliable than a hen -- especially an inexperienced hen. They very often get so excited abiut being a mommy when the first few eggs hatch, that they get up and leave the remaining eggs. I'm not saying they all do that, but the incubator never does that.

Having said that, unless you have a commercial grade incubator, taking the eggs away from the hen can raise other problems -- eg a deformed leg or one of the ither many problems that come from an incorrect temperature or humidity.

So if you have a good incubator, take the eggs away from her before they hatch and put the chicks back with her when they do.

The one or two week old chicks can integrate with new chicks under the same hen's wing without a problem. I have raised hundreds of chicks of many different breeds over many years and have never had a problem with this. If there is a risk of the hen killing one of them, I have never had this happen. I have lost chicks because the brooder stopped working and they all huddled into a crush, so the risk of the hen harming a chick is much lower in my opinion than the risk of losing some in the brooder.

As you have probably already figured out, I prefer to take the eggs away, incubate them and put them back with a hen, even if they are slightly different in age.