First time Hatcher needing Help!

[MoparGirl1998]

I like to observe broody hens and chicks. When a hen hatches, the first to hatch often spend a full day or full two days under her before she brings them off of the nest. They will move around some but are mostly under her. After she brings them off of the nest they will eat and drink, but they seem to spend a lot of time under her for a day or two. After a couple of days they run around a lot more.

At the age you mentioned yours are pretty much doing what I'd expect. I don't see any red flags at all. Good luck!

Thank you!! We are fairly new to chickens - our current flock was brought to us as adults, and my area doesn’t allow roosters so I haven’t been able to witness any brooding or natural hatches. Thanks for all of your help!!

 

[UrbanHomesteadTX]

I'm so sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience with a dead chick! How upsetting!

I'm happy to hear you had plenty of healthy ones hatch! As far as the humidity goes, it's perfectly normal for the humidity to go up when a chick hatches, as when they hatch they are introducing fluid into the 'atmosphere.' It's not a major concern so long as the chicks dont appear to be struggling (panting, trouble breathing, excessively long time drying) and higher humidity doesn't effect hatches to my knowledge. In fact, in my last hatch the humidity was hanging around the 90s because of the amount of chicks hatching at once, but I still had a successful hatch of 24 out of 27. In my experience at least, it can at times take half a day from first pip to hatching. I actually had a chick on my last hatch that piped the evening of day 20 but didn't hatch until the morning of day 21. That was a confusing night for me.

As for the first couple of days in the brooder, its perfectly normal for chicks to be quiet and inactive for the most part. They'll still eat and drink, but being born, and having your first few days of life take some time to get over and get used to. They'll start picking up energy around half a week or a little more, and by the time they're a week and a half/two weeks they'll be drivin ya crazy.

I wish you all the luck, and welcome to the community!