3 broody hens, and 30 chicks.

[storminthenight]

a couple of days ago I hatched 17 chicks from my bator, and I also had three broody hens hatch out their chicks at the same time.

I decided to try giving them by bator chicks, and each mom accepted the chicks I gave her. They were originally on the second row up of next boxes, and today I moved them down to the bottom. well pretty much straight away all the chicks started mingling and swapping moms. The moms had a couple of little spats but nothing serious and they seem to be getting on ok now.

But I have noticed every once and a while that I hen will go after a chick and peck it, pretty hard, sometimes another mom will try and protect it, sometimes not. Once a chick got pecked by one hen, and it seemed like the other two went to go after it aswell, but I picked it up before they could do any damage. When I let it back down again nothing happened, it just mixed back in with the other chicks.

This is the only hatch I'm doing this year, and I have some really nice chicks in this bunch, I dont want to loose any or even take the chance of loosing any. Ive been keeping a close on the them, and I'm hoping the chicks can stay with the moms.

Does anyone have any advice or ideas for me? the moms are in a seperate part of the chicken house to the other chickens, and have their own outside pen to go out into when the chicks are old enough.

Ive only ever had one other hen hatch out her own chicks, and they are now a month old, so the broody hens are really new to me.

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[Judy]

We're not going to be able to tell you how it will turn out. You will just have to choose between the relative safety of a brooder and the advantages of being raised by mamas. At this point, the chicks are no doubt imprinted on the hens and will NOT like being removed, nor will the hens like it, so personally, I would leave them and take my chances. Hopefully, if they do kill one, it will be one who is weak or defective.

Good luck.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree with ddawn. You can't tell how it will turn out. It depends on the personalities of the individual hens involved.

Sometimes two or more broodies can work together and raise chicks together. Sometimes one tries to take the chicks away from another broody. Chicks can get hurt in the fights. Sometimes one hen will consider the other chicks intruders and threats to her chicks and try to harm the "intruder" chicks. Sometimes a bad broody will harm her own chicks even if she has no other broody hens with chicks around. A broody hen will sometimes peck her chicks as discipline or communication, so it is not always possible to tell if she is trying to harm them or simply telling them to come get warm. It's easy to over-react yet sometimes broodies do kill chicks.

I don't fully understand hens and chicks imprinting on each other. Some hens will mother anything that comes along. Some will mother only certain chicks and either ignore or harm all others. I don't know how she can tell the difference if they are the same age. It seems that sometimes chicks will go to any mother hen around that calls them yet often they will stay with a particular hen.

So many different things can happen that I don't know how to advise you. You can leave them as they are and hope things work out. For some people, that is a successful strategy. You can take all the chicks and raise them yourself. I don't like that option, but it is probably your safest.

I don't know if you have the space and set-up to separate the broodies andtheir chicks from each other. I personally don't have any problem with a hen raising her chicks with the flock but there are some risks associated with that. A good broody will protect her chicks from the other hens but occasionally she is unsuccessful. I don't know where your hen is with the month old chicks, maybe with the flock. You have some of these same risks if you mix the hen with the older chicks with these younger chicks. The risks decrease some with the age difference but they don't completely go away.

I don't know your breeds. It may be possible for one hen to raise 15 chicks by herself. That's a lot of chicks fora hen to cover and keep warm, especially when they get a few weeks older, but an Orpington could probably do it. A leghorn or OEG probably could not. A Rock, Wyandotte, Australorp, maybe. What I'm getting at is that you could possibly take one of the broodies out of the equation by busting her from being broody and let the others raise the chicks, especially if you can separate two broodies with chicks but not three. With the way hens and chicks imprint on each other I would not try this at this point for you, but I'll mention it in case you notice one broody in particular being a threat to the chicks.

I've mentioned a lot of things that can go wrong. I'll repeat that some people let multiple broodies raise chicks together and it sometimes works. All is not guaranteed gloom and disaster. I just can't tell you how it will turn out in your case.

 

[storminthenight]

Thank You for tha advice

right now the chicks are still with all three hens. some chicks seem to stick with a certain hen, and other just mingle between the moms.

ive seen one of the hens peck a chick a few times still, but the chicks just runs away and the hen doesnt persue it, so as long as the chicks are not getting hurt I will leave them with the moms.

The hen with the month old chicks has been moved into the main coupe with all the other chickens, she went after one on the young chicks, so I moved her. But her and her chicks are doing really well out there, the hen is a really protective mom, she actually attacked a snake for her babies.

I have two seperate area's in the hen house, both with seperate outside enclosures. I dont have anywhere that I could seperate all three moms, but the most they seem to be doing now is just pecking each other if they get too close, no really bad fighting.

I hatched all three of these hens last year, two are game hen mixes, the other is a small yellow hen, she might be 1/4 game too. All three are medium/small in size, but they seem to be able to manage the 30 chicks.

I will update if anything changes, but right now I'm going to let the moms keep the chicks.