Broody hen hatched six babies. Now, she is pecking at the last one to hatch. What do I do?

[Georgetownchick]

I have a broody hen and she hatched six babies. The first two hatched one week ago yesterday. They are twins. Perfectly normal chicks. Both yellow. The third one hatched a couple of days later and is also yellow. Two days ago I had to help one hatch because the membrane had dried out. This one is white and again completely normal and healthy. The mother hen has been doing a good job with them. She had three remaining eggs under her today and I was going to remove them this evening since it has been over three weeks since she started sitting. I went out there this afternoon and discovered another baby chick. It is dark brown. It was still a little wet and not completely fluffed out so it must have not been very old. The other odd thing was that it was out of the nest. The mother was not near it at all. She was off with the others scratching in the dirt. I put them all back together. This evening when I went to check on them I noticed the new baby chick had a bloody peck mark on the side of its head. I then noticed that when the chick tried to get a bite to eat the mother hen pecked it hard. Why is she doing this? I did remove the baby chick and put it in a brooder box and also pulled one of its siblings out as well so it would not be lonely. They are sleeping with each other right now. Should I try to put both of them back under the mother or just keep them inside the box in my house till they are bigger?

 

[cypressdrake]

If she was seen pecking them, then remove them and brood your self. If you see another chicken attack or peck them then you may want to put her alone with her chicks. Sometimes it is best that she be alone with them, sometimes they will do strange things around the flock, that they won't do alone with chicks. I have also seen mother RIR eat her chicks, this is mostly seen in red breeds.
Also to high of protein will cause canibals in chicks, stay away from gamebird feeder or anything over 20% protein. I changed one time and seen the chicks start to peck each other and then I was told it was the feed, I switched back and never had a problem again. Too high protein is like a drug that wires them up.High pro is good for ducks, quails, and geese, but not chicks. Stay under 20%

 

[paigeymeg66]

well my advice would be to get the brooder out and make a separate sanctuary for the little chickens just untikl they get bigger as big chickens ten to peck at their chicks and some times they can injure them...