Can I combine mothers and chicks?

[chickengeorgeto]

Chicks don't need to, or maybe they shouldn't even leave the nest for the first three days or so. This give the chicks ample time to absorb the egg yoke sack into their abdomens and that helps them avoid navel infections. That is why it is possible to ship day old hatchery chicks long distances without food and water but week old chicks would all die if shipped the same distance.

How long has the jilted mother hen been sulking? If it is less than three days it is of little importance. If she soon leaves the nest on her own then she is by far a better mother than your other hens combined.

Repost and let us know now she is doing.

It may forever more be too late to make new bonds between hen and chick.
If that is the case it will be up to you to takeover and raise these last few chicks as your own.

 

[tofupup]

Thank you. They are all outside now, in the stall and the yard, with their respective chick bunches. The spurned hen is still the least active and is usually just hunkered down with them in the corner (as opposed to racing around the yard), but she must be doing something right because everyone's still alive and looking good.

Here's a photo of the wimpy mom and her baby:

 

[tofupup]

Oh NO! I spoke too soon!! Just when I thought everything was okay, a ******* hawk grabbed a chick, through the netting, right in front of me!!!

I didn't even think the hawk had gotten anything; I thought it had just hit the netting and bounced off and flown away, but suddenly I noticed there was no baby, and a mother hen running around calling to her single baby! This was the first mother, whose single baby was 3 days older than the clutch. So horrible!

I don't understand how the hawk knew how to dive between the overlapping layers of the netting that well? How could he even slip through there without getting tangled on his way in or out? So confused. So devastating!

Needless to say, the wimpy cautious mother and her chicks are safely inside the stall, as they have been all day. But oh my God-- that hawk!! Right in front of me!

 

[seann]

That's horrible. Sorry to hear.
How tall is the netting and is it loose?

Poor mother hen.

 

[Carolyn]

I think a more appropriate term for the "whimpy" hen might be grieving mother.
Sorry about the hawk. I had some newly acquired game hens and a roo covered dog run but I had added chicken netting over a small space in the top and somehow she managed to get out thru it.

 

[AmericanMom]

That sounds like an excellent plan, and boo to citified neighbors. I'm afraid if someone moved out into the country next to me then started complaining about animal noises, I'd invest in a flock of peafowl just to spite them!

Which is how we came about keeping ten roosters lol
Well, only keeping them til cull day but the 7 pullets started crowing last week and they start in around 3:30am...lol...teach them to complain about my one lone Roo and force us to listen to there three dogs yapping at everything including a tree all day lol

 

[tofupup]

Well, no, the wimpy mother isn't grieving, as her baby was not the one who was eaten by the hawk; it was the more aggressive hen who took her chick out roaming whose baby was killed through the hawk netting. In any case, it's good (bad) to know that hawks can tear through hawk netting, and that cautious/wimpy hens make better mothers in this case. I guess I need to invest in some kind of hard-wire netting cover. Can anyone recommend a particular brand (link?)

In any case, I sincerely hope all these surviving babies are not roosters, although I am sure they will be. Does anyone recall seeing some kind of soft rooster collar that someone makes to help stifle the crowing a bit? I know roosters need to express themselves, but I think they would prefer being alive and less vocal than dead from my neighbor. Before I moved in here, her dog used to "accidentally" come over the fence and kill the previous owner's roosters.

I only have 4 roosters now, and I much prefer their calls to those of the crack dealers who used to stand outside my apartment building yelling up to my neighbors.