gothicpicasso
Songster
I had a d’Uccle hen go broody back in October. Once I was convinced she was set on hatching her golf ball, I got her some eggs to hatch. While she was sitting she would get up and run outside to take care of business once or twice a day. During this time her “sister” d’Uccle would often come lay in the nest box momma was using. Everything was going well. The chicks hatched on November 19th. Things went south at this point and I was forced to keep momma and the babies confined in a kennel inside the coop. This went on for several weeks as the chicks grew. I would let them out to run around but manly they stayed safe in the kennel. Around the end of December I started only closing the kennel door at night when they went back in to sleep and would open it first thing in the morning. After a week or two of this I stopped closing it ever but left the kennel so they could sleep in it since they seemed to still be doing that. Now about the time I started only closing the door at night my second d’Uccle decided to stop laying and eventually just started spending all day in the coop with momma and the chicks. Momma never once took the babies outside, that I have seen. So probably a week or two ago momma stopped sleeping with the chicks and went back to sleeping on the roost bar. So here I am with four 12 week old silkie chicks spending all day in the coop, along with two d’Uccle hens. My one silkie hen is now broody and also sitting all day in the coop, but she will run outside to do her business and grab snacks and what not. My four Barred Rocks are going out and roaming around the run and just being themselves. Sorry this is so long just trying to give all of the info I can think or that might be important. I will add I’ve tried putting the d’Uccle hens out in the run and they get nervous and run around a bit before coming right back in the coop. I haven’t forced the chicks out yet because the few times I’ve seen them out in the run they seemed stuck and when I tried to show them how to get back in they didn’t get it. In fact I had to crawl under the coop one night when one of them had gotten locked out by the automatic door. Any ideas on how to get my girls back out into the run enjoying a bit of sun? Any thoughts are appreciated. Thank you.