Raising chicks with a mother

[Knight101]

Can I give a hen that I have a clutch of eggs to hatch and while she is taking care of those chicks add in more chicks that I hatched in my incubator and then slowly take out the older chicks as I add in new ones? Basically the goal is for the hen to teach them how to eat and drink and the only thing I have to do is give them water and feed.

 

[333113]

Can I give a hen that I have a clutch of eggs to hatch and while she is taking care of those chicks add in more chicks that I hatched in my incubator and then slowly take out the older chicks as I add in new ones? Basically the goal is for the hen to teach them how to eat and drink and the only thing I have to do is give them water and feed.

Generally, as long as a hen has some eggs in her nest, she will be somewhat receptive to having new chicks added in, especially if you add them in when it's dark and everyone is pretty much asleep, and maybe remove an egg or two when you add in the new chicks.

I quite frequently will add a few incubator-hatched chicks to a hen's brood, but usually just once.

But, no, it's not an endless process. A hen will at some point decide she is not accepting more chicks. This has less to do with the number of chicks, and more to do with time elapsed since she was broody, I think.

You can get some benefit from placing a brooder of new chicks next to a hen and her family. The brooder chicks will learn quite a lot from the hen, and will be better behaved, almost as if raised by a hen, in my experience.