10 meat bird chicks, 5 layer chicks, and one Buff Orpington broody...

[Mojo]

I have chicks arriving soon and one broody. I can not imagine they would all fit under her, but, it would be nice. If not, I would choose which she can adopt and put the others under heat. Or, could I just put the hen and a heat lamp in the same area and figure the chicks would play musical (chairs) mama? Oh, I hope she wouldn't want to fit under the lamp to be close to those that did not fit under her. Or, could she sit on all of them for awhile and then I could separate them? That would stress her? Wondering what to do?

 

[Squishychicken]

Since its summer itll be warming up some what's the temp like where you live?

If its warm enough they should be able to get enough heat from the weather and snugglinging under the mom and siblings. If you do a heat lamp theres guards you can get to go over them so the hens dont get to close. So if you use extra heat then definantly get one I once had a silkie hen get her back feather burnt and a few hens the tips of there tail feathers. So from now on I use guards for the lamp

My serama hens which are 1/ 3 the size of normal hens and manage to fit a bunch of chicks under them then again those are small too. Buff orps are pretty big hens.

 

[Mojo]

Thanks. It gets hot here but the temp differences between night and day are high. I decided to make my duplex into a triplex. So, the broody gets 8 and the heat lamp gets 8.