Can someone tell me about letting broody hens raise chicks??

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akanalynnn

akanalynnn

In the Brooder
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For some reason my 2 girls' eggs fell out of the coop and died...They were due to hatch tomorrow. Sad, I know. I want to know about how I can fool my hens into thinking some new day old chicks are the ones they so lovingly failed to hatch.

I've heard something about placing them in a bag so they get used to their peeping......etc. Also, Do I need to alter the coop to make it easier for the chicks to get in? My coop is about a foot and a half of the ground, with a little ladder. Will I have to lower it or make it easier somehow, or perhaps just put them in the coop at night?. Both my girls obviously want to be mamas really bad. They've been trading duties on 3 eggs..there's only one left and who knows if it'll hatch after what happened to the other two.

So what's the scoop?
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Most people slip the chicks under the hen at night. Works best with 1-3 day old chicks, I believe. Also, if the egg does hatch, the chicks you add should to be the same size so the hen does not reject some. They might do fine where they are if the babies can climb the ladder. The hens may have discarded eggs that had something wrong with them.

I'm no expert here. Hopefully some others will come along with some more thoughts.
 
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You would be better off having the hen and chicks where there are no obstacles. If the hen returns to the nest in the coop, there WILL be stragglers that can`t figure out the ramp or ladder or even a lip in the front of the nest. They are persistant as the hen will keep calling, but some are bound to be left in the cold. Make a box with straw(?) at ground level for them and make sure that hen can`t leave them ........Pop
 
both previous posters have good advice. I slip my babies under broodies all the time... I don't even wait til night. They always take them right there on the spot. If the hen is used to an elevated nest like mine are, she will probably try to roost up there and abandon the babies. I bring them in at night and stick them in the brooder .with food and water then put them back outside in the morning til they're a bit stronger and Im certain they can make the climb up the ramp to the nest and down the ramp into the run.

Good Luck.

eta: if you make a nest for her on the floor of the coop and she takes it...that's great... you don't have to do the brooder thing. Just tuck them in each night for the first week to make sure she didn't get a hair-brained idea about returning to her previous nest.
 
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hm...I have 2 girls who are sharing duties on this one lonely egg. Will they share chicks too? Or perhaps fight over them? They've been broody for 20 days now, so they should be ripe! LOL
 
I went and got (the most gorgeous sweet little bundles of cuteness!!!) chicks from a friend last weekend and we unthinkingly grabbed all 5 from one broody hen. All the chicks had been mixed between her 2 hens previously so she added 2 chicks to Ms. Broody Hen from the non broody momma hen to make up for the loss. I left but had to come back with my chicks because Ms. Broody flipped out. My friend was able to rescue the 2 chicks before the hen did damage, but we replaced 2 that we had taken from her and I grabbed 2 from the non broody. All was fine after that, but these were about 3-4 week old chicks (bantams) and so I was thinking that because of the age, the "outsider" chicks smelled like the different mom too much.
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I don't know. Maybe that's why it works with young chicks especially hatchery day olds because they wouldn't smell like another hen. I don't know how this would pan out for your girls sharing chicks though. No matter what, you'll just have to keep an eye out and if you have to separate into cages for now, I guess that's what you'll have to do. Good luck hun!
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Well, I got some "guinea pig" chicks (a black tailed japanese bantam, and a sicilian buttercup)... I took mama silkie inside in a tupperware container with some hay, with an egg from the fridge under her (I let the other hen take over egg patrol). I then put the two peeping babies in their box right outside her box while she sat inside in my room. I could tell by the way she was clucking at their peeps that she was excited so i went ahead and gave them to her... She just pushed their little butts right underneath her and started mumbling contentedly to herself. I've since seen her showing the bantam how to drink
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I'm pretty sure I could have put goslings underneath her and she wouldn't have blinked an eye.

Are all silkies such amazing mamas?

How long til I should put them outside? I was thinking in the morning I'd give them some supervised outside time (it's about 75 here, the babies are a week old, but the japanese bantam is SO SO tiny. Like the size of a 50 cent piece. I am so excited to see them out in the back yard
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I have to put my chicks into the coop & nest box with waiting mama for the first week or two since the hens don't use the ramp but fly up to the step by the coop door, leaving the chicks looking up at her with awe. If she'd only use the ramp the chicks would follow her up it, but hens don't do that.

Whether or not a hen will accept other chicks & the ages of chicks depends completely on the hen, regardless of breed. I had 3 hens vying for 3 chicks, so I picked up 4 more chicks that were 2 weeks old. In the meantime 2 more eggs hatched under a broody on a nest of turkey eggs (one of the other hens abandon the eggs to mother the chicks, so I stuck what hadn't hatched in with the turkey eggs). When I tried to introduce the motley crew of varied-agers in, 2 of the hens vehemently rejected them and the 3rd welcomed them, one and all, with open wings. The 2 weekers had been raised sans broody, so they had no clue what a mama hen was for or how to interpret her language. It took them the better part of the day, with me frequently ushering them along to her, for them to 'get it'. Now they act as if they've been with her since day one. BTW, all my chickens...regardless of age...free range and spend the night in one communal coop.
 

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