Newtoraisingchicks
In the Brooder
- Aug 30, 2023
- 10
- 20
- 29
This is my first time hatching chicks. A few weeks ago our White Orpington went broody and started collecting eggs. As other hens layed over the following weeks, my kids put all the eggs under her. We weren't really sure what would happen or how to go about it. We weren't really keeping track of how many days she had been broody, but it had been 2 or 3 weeks. We left for a weekend trip and came home to find a fuzzy black chick in the nesting box with her. We moved Mama and the chick along with the other 14 eggs she had been sitting on, into a brooder box in the garage to keep them separate from the rest of the flock. She kept sitting on the eggs but no more eggs hatched. The chick was already fluffy and active and looked to be a couple of days old when we found it. The next day, our hen started losing interest in sitting on eggs. We had one egg that got a hairline crack in it when we were moving the nest (in hindsight I wish I would have just left them all alone in the coop but I was worried about the other chickens attacking baby chicks). The cracked egg began to seep a small amount of blood. We candled all the eggs and found 3 that were unfertilized. All the rest we kept trying to encourage the mama hen to sit on. One of the eggs pipped and we kept trying to get the hen to keep it warm but she seemed to have lost interest in sitting on eggs and was focused on raising her chick. When we put the pipped egg under her, she attacked the pipped egg and pecked a nickel sized hole into it before I was able to rescue it and take it away from her. She then smashed open the egg with the hairline crack in it and began ripping apart the dead chick inside it and feeding it to her chick. She was very aggressively pecking at it and ripping it apart. It was disturbing. At this point we removed all the eggs and tried to keep them warm ourselves. The chick in the pipped egg seemed to be bleeding just a little but was still breathing and peeping. Almost 24 hours later, the pipped egg hatched, and we named it Pip. We then bought an incubator for the rest of the eggs and have been incubating them. One more egg just hatched tonight. At this point, our mama hen "Mr. Chicken" and her chick "Bebony" are together in a big brooder box in the garage and "Pip" is in a separate box next to them by himself (with a heat lamp). We tried several times to put Pip back in with Bebony and Mr. Chicken but each time Mr. Chicken aggressively pecked at him and we removed him. I also tried removing Mr. Chicken to the chicken coop and putting Bebony and Pip together but Bebony was very distressed and so was Mr. Chicken. They seem to be very bonded and Mr. Chicken is doing a good job of raising Bebony. She just refuses to raise any other chicks. So I am wondering what the best thing is to do at this point. Should I put the 3rd chick in with Pip once it dries off, and keep adding chicks when they hatch, and keep that flock separate from Bebony and Mr. Chicken, or should I send Mr. Chicken back to the coop and put Bebony in with the rest of the chicks? Or should I try again to put chicks in with Mr. Chicken and encourage her to raise them? At what point should I put the 3rd chick in with Pip? I'd like to keep him in the incubator for a while to get all dried out and encourage the other chicks to hatch, but I also don't want Pip to be alone much longer. Any recommendations? Thanks for your help!