Broody chick raising chicks?

[Cornishboyraptor]

Last year was my first year with chickens, so I incubated a LOT of eggs, mostly shipped eggs, in batches of a dozen or so, and in three different types of incubators.

Naturally I had good hatches and bad hatches, and some hatches that resulted in only one or two chicks.

So by the end of summer I was brooding chicks of different ages, whoever got along best together.

I have one line light Sussex hen who was very motherly even as a small pullet. The two younger chicks I put with her were kept warm and sheltered under her wings, and she made sure they had full access to the food and water.

That's great. So it's a characteristic? I wonder if it can be breed in such like the Plymouth rock has bred out of broodyness?
I think this is quite rare as people dont mix ages so they would never know.

 

[Cornishboyraptor]

@NatJ @TimberLine Homestead @SulkyBantam @parvani sorry I haven't said anything for quite a while. Anyway a bit ago I introduced the chicks to the black pekin/cochin and so started looking after the little black chick but iris the cl looked after the rest, the pekin did peck the others if they test her boundaries but she doesn't mind the black chick as she doesn't peck him. Then the next thing I did is introduce them to the flock by letting all of them free range and the flock just ignored them. Until recently I put them all in the main flock and there was pecking and all the chicks ran with iris while the black one with the pekin (that was already accustomed) weren't getting pecked at as often. Iris did not have the instinct to protect the chicks as she did not stand up. I have learn to that she was the one getting pecked on the most. I've learnt this when my dad went to work with them all together and came home to iris having her head feathers pecked off and bleeding just behind her comb. We separated them and now we will make them a separate flock for just the layers so the bantams (got the suspicion one of them done it) are in a different enclosure and we will move 1 barred rock to the layer flock when they have matured as there would be an already established flock.