Can I put chicks under a hen at night?

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cookinmama

cookinmama

Chirping
7 Years
Oct 26, 2016
2
10
79
Bulverde, TX
Hello! I have been on this page for years but never posted. We have 2 hens left from our original flock and they are 2 years old. (A buff and Orpington). We are wanting to add a few more hens cause these don’t lay very often, maybe an egg every two days or so.

My question is, can we buy some chicks and place them under a hen at night in a nest box even though they aren’t broody? Or will they perish. We really don’t have time to tend them in a heat lamp situation. Oh and we have a resident Cooper’s hawk in a tree by our pond. 🙈
 
Hello and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad to meet you.
A non-broody chicken will attack interloper chickens in the flock if they are just tossed in there with them without integration. A small chick would be killed.
You will either need to wait for one of your older gals to go broody (have they ever?) or brood the chicks yourself.
If your coop is large enough you can make a brooder inside the coop and brood them right in view of the older hens with a brooder plate. That will greatly speed up integration. Chicks I've brooded in view of the adult flock started integrating at 5 weeks and roosting with the adult birds at 8 weeks. Granted, it was way down at the farthest end from the adults as they could get but they stopped going back to their brooder completely by 8 weeks old.
 
I just noticed your location. I am in Houston and I can tell you I would have chicks outside without a heat lamp by day 3 right now. It's plenty warm enough here to not need a heat lamp at all. I would not add chicks to a coop with older hens though.
 
cookinmama said:
My question is, can we buy some chicks and place them under a hen at night in a nest box even though they aren’t broody?
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I do not think that will work.

If the hen is not broody, she will not be ready to take care of chicks.

So either she will kill them, or she will ignore them, but she will not keep them warm and take care of them.

cookinmama said:
We really don’t have time to tend them in a heat lamp situation.
Click to expand...
If you set up a really big brooder (like 4 feet by 8 feet), with a heat lamp in one corner and plenty of ventilation to keep the rest cool, you can tend chicks almost as fast as you tend adults. They can move themselves around to warm up and cool down, they have enough space that you don't need really need to clean the brooder at all, and if you put the waterer on a paving stone they won't be able to kick in enough bedding to matter. Then you just provide fresh water and food once or twice a day, and look for any obvious problems at that time. Large amounts of space, with a wide range of temperatures, let you avoid most of the common chick problems.
 
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