3buffs1barred4chicks
In the Brooder
- May 25, 2022
- 7
- 31
- 39
We mail ordered four chicks in April, last Wednesday. they arrived. We received 6 chicks, unfortunately one of them passed away during shipping. Wednesday afternoon we tried introducing the five alive chicks to our broody hen, Cinnamon. She's over a year old, and has been broody for about a month.
She was not a fan. We'd moved her to our brooder w/a connected run, and though the babies loved her, she didn't care for them, instead just pacing the run, sqawking for her friends outside. After a couple violent pecks at the chicks, we actually removed Cinnamon and she went back to her original nest in the coop. It's been uber hot here in Texas, we felt comfortable leaving the chicks in the brooder by themselves, with a heating pad in the coop, and me checking on them what felt like every five minutes. We showed them their food and water, and let them hang out.
That night, we closed the hens in their coop, and around ten pm tucked the chicks under Cinnamon, moving their food and water into the nest beside them. Thursday morning I was up before the sun (a rarity for me...) and outside the coop with my heart in my chest. Cinnamon was letting the chicks clamber over her, murmuring to them and immediately tucked them under herself when we peeked in. The hens coop is quite elevated, and we didn't feel comfortable letting her raise the chicks in it, not sure how they would get up and down. I scooped up the chicks and settled them and their new mama into a bin to transfer them over to the brooder.
Cinnamon and her chicks, as of Sunday are happy and full of energy. They aren't sure how they feel about me yet, but we're working on it...
On a completely different note, what do y'all do about chiggers? They don't seem to be bothering the chickens or the babies, but they are definitely bothering me. Our coop & brooder are far back in our yard, partly under trees, in a kinda undeveloped part of our lawn (lots of dead leaves & miscellaneous plants). We don't want to treat the chiggers with something that'll hurt our chickens, but it's getting harder and harder to go out to hang out with them, or even hang out with them when I just continuously get more and more chigger bites!
And the promised pictures....
She was not a fan. We'd moved her to our brooder w/a connected run, and though the babies loved her, she didn't care for them, instead just pacing the run, sqawking for her friends outside. After a couple violent pecks at the chicks, we actually removed Cinnamon and she went back to her original nest in the coop. It's been uber hot here in Texas, we felt comfortable leaving the chicks in the brooder by themselves, with a heating pad in the coop, and me checking on them what felt like every five minutes. We showed them their food and water, and let them hang out.
That night, we closed the hens in their coop, and around ten pm tucked the chicks under Cinnamon, moving their food and water into the nest beside them. Thursday morning I was up before the sun (a rarity for me...) and outside the coop with my heart in my chest. Cinnamon was letting the chicks clamber over her, murmuring to them and immediately tucked them under herself when we peeked in. The hens coop is quite elevated, and we didn't feel comfortable letting her raise the chicks in it, not sure how they would get up and down. I scooped up the chicks and settled them and their new mama into a bin to transfer them over to the brooder.
Cinnamon and her chicks, as of Sunday are happy and full of energy. They aren't sure how they feel about me yet, but we're working on it...
On a completely different note, what do y'all do about chiggers? They don't seem to be bothering the chickens or the babies, but they are definitely bothering me. Our coop & brooder are far back in our yard, partly under trees, in a kinda undeveloped part of our lawn (lots of dead leaves & miscellaneous plants). We don't want to treat the chiggers with something that'll hurt our chickens, but it's getting harder and harder to go out to hang out with them, or even hang out with them when I just continuously get more and more chigger bites!
And the promised pictures....
