I've got four buff orpingtons that are...jeez, almost 10 months old! At any rate, one has gone broody twice since January, and I have no doubts she'll do it again. I'd like to expand my flock by only one or two, and I'm thinking about waiting for her to go broody again and ordering some eggs off Mt. Healthy (I want red sex links.) I have some questions about letting a Broody have a go at hatching...
1. Is it absolutely, positively, no-other-way-around-it necessary to remove the broody from my others? I have no other place to put her to brood and rear. All four girls get along well, have no aggression or have any history of bothering each other. They're like golden retriever puppies, really. I could provide a separate box for her in the coop to nest in, so that the others still have access to their regular nest boxes.
2. Once the chick(s) hatch, must they (and the broody) be removed? I would like to just have nature run its course and let the mother raise the baby. Would she protect it from the others? Again, I don't even know that the others would care.
3. My four girls are extremely friendly, and I attribute a lot of this (other than just a buffs tendency to be friendly) to the time I spent socializing with them as babies in the brooder. (Got them at 1 day old.) Will a chick that is raised by a hen in the coop, not by me, in a cage in my house, still be friendly? Will the mother teach it that humans=food=not scary? The girls still get visited several times a day, but not as often as when they were in the brooder.
I know i could raise chicks in the house in the brooder again, but I worry about re-introducing them when they outgrow the brooder. Also, I'd really only like one more, which is why I think a broody is the best scenario. At what point does a mother generally decide her baby is old enough and go about her business? And how long after hatch does it usually take for her to start laying again?
Thanks!
(i know i probably could have put this in the hatching category, but what I'm really interested in is what happens after they hatch.)
1. Is it absolutely, positively, no-other-way-around-it necessary to remove the broody from my others? I have no other place to put her to brood and rear. All four girls get along well, have no aggression or have any history of bothering each other. They're like golden retriever puppies, really. I could provide a separate box for her in the coop to nest in, so that the others still have access to their regular nest boxes.
2. Once the chick(s) hatch, must they (and the broody) be removed? I would like to just have nature run its course and let the mother raise the baby. Would she protect it from the others? Again, I don't even know that the others would care.
3. My four girls are extremely friendly, and I attribute a lot of this (other than just a buffs tendency to be friendly) to the time I spent socializing with them as babies in the brooder. (Got them at 1 day old.) Will a chick that is raised by a hen in the coop, not by me, in a cage in my house, still be friendly? Will the mother teach it that humans=food=not scary? The girls still get visited several times a day, but not as often as when they were in the brooder.
I know i could raise chicks in the house in the brooder again, but I worry about re-introducing them when they outgrow the brooder. Also, I'd really only like one more, which is why I think a broody is the best scenario. At what point does a mother generally decide her baby is old enough and go about her business? And how long after hatch does it usually take for her to start laying again?
Thanks!
(i know i probably could have put this in the hatching category, but what I'm really interested in is what happens after they hatch.)
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