2 Broody Hens Raising Chicks Together...

[TheGirlyGoatLdy]

I wanted to share something that I am witnessing on my farm, that doesn't seem to be anywhere on the web. I have 2 sets of chickens. The first group are those who follow the rules & live in the pens. I feed & water then, just like any other coop. My second group, are rogue! They refuse to live in a pen. They flew out & have been living on my property for years, but are pretty much self sufficient. This spring 2 of these hens sat on a cluster of eggs together. They ate & drank in shifts. When 8 little chicks hatched, they raised them together. Guarded them together fiercely! Now again, I have found these same girls w/ 6 new chicks doing this again. But what is strange, we now have another 2 hens doing the same thing, raising 5 varied colored chicks, and 2 ducks hatched ducklings yesterday! Again, sat on them together, raising them together! That is 3 pairs of moms raising chicks together! Has anyone ever seen this? I am wondering if I am seeing an evolution or maybe it is more common and we just haven't talked about it? Would love to hear your thoughts!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't do ducks but I'd assume its the same as chickens. Many people on this forum have great success with two broody hens hatching together and raising the chicks together. Hens like to lay in the same nest, often at the same time. It's not that unusual for me to see three hens in one nest laying eggs while the rest of the nests are empty. Most of my broody hens allow other hens to enter their nests and lay eggs. If the second goes broody then you have two broodies sharing a nest.

Sometimes, maybe most of the time, these hens work great together. Sometimes they don't. Occasionally they will fight over the eggs or chicks and may damage the eggs or chicks. I've seen that but most of the time when they fight one wins and takes over, the other breaks from being broody with no real harm done. I haven't seen it myself but some people report that one broody might kill the chicks that hatch under another broody.

It's been talked about before and isn't all that uncommon with the people that have breeding flocks with broody hens.

 

[chicks are life]

My blue Cochin inspired my old English game to go broody.

Gave the oegb 6 Guinea eggs
Gave the Cochin ? chicken eggs

The chicken eggs died so I gave the Cochin 3 of the oegbs eggs the eggs hatched together.

The moms were fine living together.
After a couple weeks I joined them in with the flock. the oegb is 2nd highest and the coxhin is one of the lowest so she protected the babies or did daytime duty
At night they would share a nesting box the fluffy Cochin would get all of them and the oegb would attempt to steal them.

So basically they switched dutys night and day
And they are still friends and the oegb rarely pecks the cochin