Allowing broody hen to go full mom

[RIredlady]

Ok so this is my first time allowing my broody hen to hatch her own eggs. I currently have some eggs piping so they’re almost here. Other than chick feed what should I expect in the coming days with her and her new chicks?

 

[Ridgerunner]

How are you keeping them? Are they free to roam with the flock or are they isolated. Can you tell us something about what you are working with?

 

[RIredlady]

Currently the hen and her clutch are in the coop. It’s a large coop, I’ve got an attached fully enclosed run as well as an open run area. I could block off the half of the coop for her and her chicks, but I’m hoping that she will just mom them until they’re big enough to deal on their own.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Thanks, pretty much as I do it. I leave the hen alone until after she hatches and brings the chicks off the nest. Sometime that is within 24 hours of the first one hatching, sometimes it is well into the third day after the first one to hatch. She knows what is going on much better than I do so I let her make that decision. What I do at this stage is put food and water on the coop floor where she can take the chicks to it when she brings them off of the nest.

The other adults will probably see any feed you put out for the chicks as a special treat and devour it. Really aggravating. So you'll probably have to refill it a lot. Those pigs!!! They will also scratch a lot. By having the food and water at floor level they will scratch bedding into it, messing the water up especially. My coop bedding is wood shavings. I put a large piece of plywood on top of the shavings and put the water on that. It keeps the water cleaner a lot longer but occasionally you'll need to clean the bedding off of that plywood. It doesn't have to be plywood, you can use cardboard. I even used an old piece of carpet once.

Usually the hen keeps the chicks on my coop floor for a couple of days. Then she takes them outside. I have food and water outside for them too. Once she starts taking them out, mine keep their chicks out all day long, bringing them back in the coop at night. They sleep on the coop floor, she does not take them to a nest, but my nests are up at an elevation. If you have a nest low enough she may try to take them into it to sleep at night. Mine usually just go into a corner of the coop at night though I have had a few that want to sleep in the middle of the floor.

I've never had a rooster threaten the chicks. They are his babies, some roosters even help Mama take care of them, though most of mine don't. Most of the other hens leave the chicks alone, but the hens are more of a risk than the rooster. When one of the hens bothers her chick Mama promptly whips butt. It doesn't take them long to learn to leave the chicks alone.

Other than providing food and water where the chicks can get to them I pretty much trust my broody to take care of everything. They do, including integration. I've had broody hens wean their chicks as early as 3 weeks, some go well past two months. Even the three week olds have managed quite well on their own. I have a large coop, a decent sized main run (12' x 32'), and an area maybe 45' x 65' inside electric netting. I think having this kind of room makes this a lot easier. I think you have quite a bit of room but not sure.

A word of warning. A baby chick likes to crawl up under Mama's fathers and under her wings. They can hide under there really well. I once killed a chick buy crushing it when I picked the hen up to see what color of chicks she'd hatched. It was under her wing. I still pick a broody up if I have a real need, not a whim, but I'm a lot more careful.

Good luck with the hatch.

 

[RIredlady]

Thank you so much for all the info! I’ll set up a Small food and water station for the chicks in the coop and see how it goes