Adding extra chick to hen with 3 already

[Green myrtle]

We just got 3 chicks from Coastal and gave them to our Broody hen on Friday. It is love at first sight, and everyone is happy.
It is now Sunday and I'd like to go back to the store and get ONE MORE chick. It would be from the same batch the same age as friday's chicks.

My spouse is concerned that this may rock the boat, and cause the hen to get confused or reject existing chicks or not accept the new one.

Please share your opinion

 

[azygous]

It's always tempting to see if you can push a good thing just a tad further. I'm with the boyfriend and I say leave well enough alone.

 

[Green myrtle]

thanks; what exactly could go wrong in terms of mother hen behavior?

 

[azygous]

Many of us have been tempted to sneak in a single chick to an established brood or even slip in several feed store chicks under a hen with one chick, and the results can be terrifying.

In my case, it was the latter. A hen in my flock had hatched a single chick. At the same time this chick hatched, I brought four chicks home from the feed store of the exact same age and tried giving them to the hen. She wasted no time in going into a fury, and started attacking the chicks, rolling right over her chick as she went after these intruders. I quickly snatched all of the chicks up, including hers, and brooded them all myself.

If I had just left well enough alone, the hen could have raised her own chick, and I could have raised the others.

This is not to say that in some cases a hen will happily accept any chicks that find their way into her nest, but it's always a gamble as broodies can be unpredictable.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Hens bond with 'their' chicks at hatch, and chicks to their mama. If you really really want to try, introduce the chick at nighttime when everyone is sleepy and be out there before dawn for at least 3 hours to make sure it goes OK. I personally wouldn't try it.
I've had up to three hens hatch chicks on the same day, from 'the same batch' (I'll often set eggs under the 'best' broody and give them out closer to hatch day to others). All three hens knew who their chicks were and definitely did not mother any other hens chicks.

 

[Prince and Pavo]

Hello!

First of all, in order for this to work out, the mother hen would need to accept the new chick, and it must also accept her. If the chick is afraid of the hen then it simply wouldn’t work, but I don’t think you need to be afraid of the hen rejecting any of the three original chicks.

I would like to share a recent experience with you if that’s alright…

I hatched two chicks in my incubator several weeks ago, a couple days before I went on a week-long trip. I had a friend watch them while I was out of town, and they did just fine. A few days after I got back, I realized that running a heat lamp 24/7 was absolutely not ideal, and so I started thinking about putting these two-week-old chicks with my broody hen that had just hatched some other chicks. I decided to try it, and just watch closely to see how they did. The mother hen took one of them (which I am assuming is a female), and attacked the other (which I believe is a male). I took him away and tried again with two other co-mothering hens that had some more chicks, and they accepted him right away. All the chicks are now doing excellent, and besides the slight size difference, you’d never guess that the hens didn’t hatch them.

Now, I wouldn’t assume that this will be the case for every hen or chick, and introducing new chicks to broody hens must always be done with caution and care, but I do think that trying to add another chick to the three that your broody has now would not necessarily be a bad idea, so long as you watch them all closely and are ready to separate and care for it if something were to happen.

Let us know what you decide to do! Best of luck!

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Thou shall not mix!