Broody chicken mama sent to the penalty box

[chickenguysmom]

Our super broody hatched out a couple of chicks 3 weeks ago. She is our head hen and we don't have roosters but her two chicks both look to be baby roos. Tonight when I moved them from their tractor to their cage, I notice first one, and then the other, had bloodied combs and faces. This hen has rejected baby Roos in the past. So tonight she went back to the coop. Her poor little Roos were quite upset. Tomorrow I may try to merge them in with our other broody and her three chicks. All are the same age.

What do you think? Did I do the right thing?.

 

[Judy]

I do think you did the right thing. Sometimes their instincts aren't so good.

I think you'll be lucky if the other broody accepts them, but it's worth a try, and I wish you luck! Are you going to try slipping them under her at night?

 

[chickenguysmom]

No, I cannot slip them under the other broody as she is a bantam and she does some really weird things. We think she wants to be the baby and she tries to get under the babies. At three weeks old her full size babies are already about 1/2 her size. LOL. If she could get on top it would be a chicken pyramid.

In the end we put the two "orphans" in the tractor by themselves. Tonight when the mama who doesn't take to roosters was free-ranging she rediscovered her babies in the tractor and we reunited the family and she seemed to do alright. So I don't know what possessed her to beat them up. This is a picture of one of the baby roos and there is still some dried blood on his comb and his wattle looks kinda beat up and around the eye looks like it took a couple of bad shots.