imacowgirl2
Songster
Meet “Broody”, who is apparently a serial chick collector in addition to trying to be a serial broody 
She hatched out 11 chicks shortly after Christmas…and then two weeks later when we had 3 day old chicks in the brooder, due to a combo of equipment breakdown, extreme temps, and road conditions, we had to move the brooder chicks out of the brooder and to the floor of the coop she was occupying with their mama heating pad for a night. By morning she had collected the additional chicks to her and was caring for them as her own.
We left her alone and monitored via camera constantly and confirmed that the new chicks were using her for heat but also using the mama heating pad when they needed it (since they needed heat more often than her 2 week old chicks) A week later we had the last couple stragglers of our last hatch a week old and ready to go to the outside brooder - she almost immediately tried to claim them as well and was distressed that they were inside the brooder instead of with her and her chicks. We cautiously moved them out of the brooder and same thing - she adopted them and they use a mix of her and the mama heating pad for heat.
She’s done with adopting new chicks for this year because we are done hatching for now…but for future reference, are there any health concerns we need to watch out for if she goes broody during hatching season next year and we let her collect chicks again? Because quite frankly, it’s much easier letting her take care of flock integration, showing the new kids around, etc than babysitting chicks in the brooder for weeks then integrating — but I don’t want to let her do it if there are health concerns it could cause for her. Obviously we will be watching and monitoring closely as she starts to wean this year, and if we let her do it best year, monitor as she collects extra chicks, making sure she has the resources she needs and doesn’t have too many…but I really just want to confirm there aren’t any potential health issues I’m not thinking of.
Broody, with some of “her” oldest and youngest chicks:

She hatched out 11 chicks shortly after Christmas…and then two weeks later when we had 3 day old chicks in the brooder, due to a combo of equipment breakdown, extreme temps, and road conditions, we had to move the brooder chicks out of the brooder and to the floor of the coop she was occupying with their mama heating pad for a night. By morning she had collected the additional chicks to her and was caring for them as her own.
We left her alone and monitored via camera constantly and confirmed that the new chicks were using her for heat but also using the mama heating pad when they needed it (since they needed heat more often than her 2 week old chicks) A week later we had the last couple stragglers of our last hatch a week old and ready to go to the outside brooder - she almost immediately tried to claim them as well and was distressed that they were inside the brooder instead of with her and her chicks. We cautiously moved them out of the brooder and same thing - she adopted them and they use a mix of her and the mama heating pad for heat.
She’s done with adopting new chicks for this year because we are done hatching for now…but for future reference, are there any health concerns we need to watch out for if she goes broody during hatching season next year and we let her collect chicks again? Because quite frankly, it’s much easier letting her take care of flock integration, showing the new kids around, etc than babysitting chicks in the brooder for weeks then integrating — but I don’t want to let her do it if there are health concerns it could cause for her. Obviously we will be watching and monitoring closely as she starts to wean this year, and if we let her do it best year, monitor as she collects extra chicks, making sure she has the resources she needs and doesn’t have too many…but I really just want to confirm there aren’t any potential health issues I’m not thinking of.
Broody, with some of “her” oldest and youngest chicks: