Broody Madness

[tori852]

More than week old......or less?
Maybe I'm missing your point?



That is one slick set-up!.....did you just leave the back panel folded down?
Now can you repeat it 3 more times?

Not sure about the multiple broodies accepting chicks and living harmoniously,
but sure want to follow along for the ride.
Might work out great, might need a backup plan ready to go.
Best of cLuck!

Thanks!!! Yep, I just folded the back panel down and covered it in shavings so there wasn't any exposed wire. And I set up wood blocks at the edges where the crate meets nest box so the chicks couldn't escape. It's a fairly big coop (8'x12' with 10 nest boxes) so I could definitely repeat this with a few more dog crates if need be, since I only have 3 hens presently laying. I also have a large disassemblable chick brooder made out of a 2x4 frame and covered in chicken wire, I could split it in half for two broodies perhaps... I'll have to think about it.

To introduce the hens and the chicks: 1.Pick a night and make sure all the chickens are asleep.
2.Take the chicks and slide them under your broody hens.
3.Do Not use a flash light, do not she them the chicks.
4.Wait for a while to make sure there is no commotion.
5.Check on them in the Morning. You should have 3 happy Moms
**I am not certain this will work for you because all chickens are different**

this seems to be the standard procedure, I will give it a go I think!

 

[WhatAboutBob?]

I am super interested to see how this all turns out!

 

[Sleek28]

Keep us posted on what technique you decide to use please!

 

[tori852]

Keep us posted on what technique you decide to use please!

Will do!

 

[Elana DeBolt]

Watching

 

[tori852]

ANOTHER hen went broody... This is literally spreading like wildfire!!!! We have only two sane hens now. How can I prevent the others from catching the broody craze? And in the future as well? I'm not going to have any laying hens at this point! And I don't want them all to be broody! I really had no idea they would do this, it's a learning experience I suppose.

For the incoming chicks, I'm planning on using just two of the broody hens as adoptive mothers. Counting the existing mother and her four chicks (the fourth egg hatched Wednesday night), that'll leave us at three family units. I don't want to deal with more family units than that at once. I'm going to head to the store to pick up another dog crate for each and set it up like I did with the first broody, and we'll see how it goes when the family units mingle together for the first time, assuming chick introduction goes well. I'll introduce tomorrow night and tell y'all how it goes. Only way to know is by trying, but plan b is set up too.

How many chicks can each adoptive mother hen take? My plan is based on 12 chicks for each, and I've read in multiple place that 12 is a good number, but I just wanted to check with y'all since I'm so new to this.

While we're at it, how do I break these two other broody hens that I don't have a need for? I've heard sticking them in a wire cage works sometimes??? And if it doesn't work then what? Cause I want them to quit it. Don't need more baby chickens.

Again, thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.

 

[aart]

You'll still need more crates for them...haha!
Crate City Coop at your place!!

My experience went like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop with fed and water

I let her out a couple times a day(you don't have to) and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two. Or take her out of crate daily very near roosting time(30-60 mins) if she goes to roost great, if she goes to nest put her back in crate.

Feed and water added after pic was taken.

 

[Life is Good!]

So how are your new chicks?! Photos?! I do hope they are as cute as can be!
Any update on what you decided about where the new chicks would be? With broodies or with one another? I'm always interested to learn other folks' success and to see what works for them. (That's the beauty of these forums...education is powerful!)
I really liked your 'solution' with the dog-house crate wrapped around the nesting box. That is ingenious and will be used by many, many folks here! Including me likely this spring!

 

[tori852]

Thanks so much for asking, the new chicks are doing great, I picked them up yesterday. 26 of them, the breeder gave us a few extra. They hatched on Wednesday like our four other chicks did. We have a total of 30 chicks now!!! So many little peeping sounds.

Here they are on the way home. They're Icelandic chickens so they don't have a standard color like most breeds. It's pretty much chance what comb style, head feathering, color, and feather pattern they are since they're a mix of the four Icelandic lines. Very interested to see what they will look like when they're bigger.

Some close ups of the different colors. I managed to get some of them to sit still on my knee for picture time. They're just so darn cute!!!

I gave 6 of these new ones to the mama hen (Ash is her name) who hatched her own 4, so she has 10 out of the 30 total chicks now. She didn't seem to notice the extras, clearly she's bad at math. The chicks immediately understood that she was mama, which surprised me. Obviously they have good instincts, and it might've helped that the breeder was using brinsea ecoglows so they understood they needed to go under something to get warmth.

As for the 4 broody hens, 2 of them decided to more or less quit which is good. They go up onto the roosts at night but sit on the nests for a part of the day acting broody. The 2 committed broody hens (Nutmeg and Cloud) are each set up with a dog crate in the coop like I did before, but they have not received chicks yet. I decided not to try it last night because I wanted to make sure they were still committed broody hens and not just copycat copouts like the other two.

I'm going to give just 2 or 3 chicks each to them tonight using the method y'all described. Probably not a necessary precaution, but I'm taking the cautious route because I really REALLY don't want to wake up to 20 dead chicks if the hens decide to reject them. That would be horrible, and they'd freeze to death with these unreasonably cold nights. Mother Nature didn't get the memo that it's supposed to be spring and not winter, we got snow yesterday.

So, if in the morning Nutmeg and Cloud have not rejected the chicks and they're all doing fine, then I'll hand the remaining chicks over. That way each of the three mother hens will have 10 chicks. Based on Ash's behavior, they don't seem to care at all if they're given extras once they're over the initial shock of "BLAH THERE'S A CREATURE UNDERNEATH ME." I guess we'll see.

I'll keep you updated!

And I'm so happy my broody set up was able to help you!!! It was literally just something I improvised with spare stuff I found in the barn since I didn't have the time or energy to build something permanent. But hey, it works.

 

[tori852]

Ok so we introduced the chicks last night like I described. Went fine at night, and they were fine when I checked on them first thing in the morning. Seeing their success, Dad gave Cloud two more in the morning so she had four. Not a good idea.
Once the chicks started waking up, Cloud decided to reject her four. She chased them out of her cage and wouldn't let them come near her. Apparently the chicks can get through the dog crate so note to anyone who might use this method: attach hardware cloth to do the dog crate or SOMETHING to keep the chicks in. Though in our case it was probably good since the chicks were able to escape and thus were uninjured. They were running around the coop though and going between the cages and freaking out.

Luckily Ash (she and her chicks are uncaged and have free roam of the coop) and Nutmeg were dutifully collecting any lost stragglers, though Ash didn't want the black chicks at all and she'd nip at them for some reason. Nutmeg is doing great with her chicks and has no color preference. She immediately switched to mommy mode and is making cute little mommy chicken sounds so we gave her more until she had 12, and we let Ash keep the ones that had run away from Cloud so she has 12 as well. The last 6 chicks are in the brooder inside since we don't have anywhere else to put them.

So it worked!!! Mostly. If I had to do it again, I'm not sure I would recommend trying to graft chicks at 6 days old, I think I should have tried all of this as soon as I brought the new chicks home. The reason is that they tend to wander more for some reason (but that might have to do with the warmer weather so idk) which is why we have Nutmeg secured in a crate for now so her chicks can't run off. I think they'll all settle down alright though and get the hang of it, but I'm not sure the two mommies will be able to share space. Ash is very defensive, she attacks any hen who comes near. We'll see how things go. I'll update y'all again soon.