Need opinions

[curious chickee]

My broody does not use the community nest. I have a seperate area for her, as soon as she has proven as a broody, I move mom and eggs to the broody coop inside my run.

My community nest is very easy to clean, open back and scrape shaving out. My other nesting boxes take longer, I do use shavings as I have found straw gets moldy in the run and emptied nesting boxes goes into the run for my deep litter.

Agree with having your brooder in the coop, when I don't have a broody hen the broody coop becomes my brooder,plus my breeding center will have brooding boxes and grow out pens all within the coop, makes early integration easier, mine began integrating at 3 weeks old, lots of hiding spots for the tiny babies in the coop for safety.

Nesting boxes all comes down to what works best for you, my friend who uses many breeding pens uses anything she finds for her nesting boxes, drawers, dog houses, dog crates, Rubbermaid boxes, her birds don't care.

 

[jordan4911]

Curious chickee and ridgerunner do you have pictures of your broody coop inside the coop?

Currently my barn plans include 2 coops in the barn. One for chickens, one for growing turkeys or extra chickens, I also have a separate broody/juvenile coop. Plus plan on putting broody chickens and 1 roo in my current house and using it strictly as a broody house. Does that make sense?

 

[jordan4911]

planning on just using sawdust so can be dumped and added to the deep litter on the floor. Would like them to be fairly easy to clean simply because with the big farm, the cows, calves, cattle, rabbits, dogs, and kids I have a lot of work on my hands

 

[Ridgerunner]

Not sure what you mean by "broody coop". This is my brooder where I raise the chicks I hatch in my incubator or chicks I get from hatcheries. It also works as a broody buster, breaking a hen from being broody when I don’t want her to hatch eggs.

I don’t have a coop for my broody hens. My hens hatch and raise the chicks with the flock, no isolation.

 

[jordan4911]

No problems with your other chickens and the chicks?

It's just a small 4x8' coop that I'm thinking about putting broody hens in to hatch and raise their chicks. The other small coop would be for chicks I hatch myself or buy.

 

[curious chickee]

This is my coop inside my run, I chose the top half while the chicks are little then around 2 weeks open the bottom

Mom is top now

 

[curious chickee]

I seperate my broody to keep other hens from laying in her nest, I only want certain eggs to hatch

 

[Ridgerunner]

I mark the eggs I want her to hatch then check daily in the late afternoon and remove any that don’t belong.

They are living animals, you can have problems no matter what you do. I have never lost a chick to another adult flock member when letting the broody raise them with the flock. I did lose a chick once when I had a group of 8 week olds isolated and a chick got into their pen. They killed it. The ironic thing is that I was planning on releasing the 8 week olds to run with the flock the next day. If I had been a day earlier, the broody hen would have been able to protect her chick.

Another time I lost a two week old chick when a hatch-mate killed it. Another two week old chick killed it while the broody watched. They happened to be in a separate coop in the run I use to lock the broody and her chicks up at night when my main coop is pretty full. They happened to be isolated from the flock because I had not opened that coop yet so they could roam with the flock. I don’t think that had anything to do with it though.

Both times I’ve lost a chick was to a fairly young chicken and they were isolated from the flock. The adults have never been a problem.

One thing I have going for me is that I have a lot of room. The broody hen has a lot of room to work with. If they are shoehorned into a tiny space it’s a lot harder on Mama.

 

[curious chickee]

Agree room is the key to integration. My broody is mean when she is sitting on eggs. Her pecks hurt, so moving her is much easier then trying to collect unmarked eggs every night. My breeding center broody pen will have multiple birds with multiple nests on the ground. The hens are all my brahmas that are not being used for breeding and a few silkies. Only my bantams are in this pen. I plan on keeping track of the hens that go broody this season. Any hen that doesn't go broody will be moved to my layer coop/run.

 

[jordan4911]

Every one has a way that works best for them, so take what works for you and if doesn't work try something else. There are a million and one ways to raise chickens.

I've never bred and raised my own before. That's the new part. And I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit nervous. I've always ordered/bought chicks before and frankly I'm tired of having to pay out the ears for shipping/etc to get chicks in the breed I want. So I just decided to start doing it myself