Can I sneak an orphan chick in with another mother hen and chicks?

[Bluebutt]

Hi,
I have a day old orphan chick the same age as a group of three with another hen. I was thinking I might try to sneak the orphan in at night and the hen would not know the difference in the morning. Anyone tried this or have another suggestion? I did try an intro in the day and the mother was not happy and shooed it out.
thanks...

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

you never know sometime it works sometimes not, but the sooner the better and keep an eye on the hen the next morning i've seen a hen not take a chick even a few days later of taking care of it

 

[Bluebutt]

Thanks, I'll give it a try. If it doesn't work I can raise it myself.

 

[thecochincoop]

really it depends on the hen. I have one that watches over the young uns I put out side and the others would rather pick on the babied. I keep this nice hen in with the babies going out for the first time so she can show them how to be a chicken.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

I'm about to find this out as well. I'm adding a tiny Serama who is over 2 months old to the group when they are the same size. The Serama is about the same size as a regular chick LOL She weighs just 2 oz.

 

[Amethyste]

it really depends on the mom I think ...

if she is a mothering type of personality it may work! My friend has a gorgeous bird, I think she is a BO hen...this hen tries to adopt ANYTHING lol Kittens, dogs, frogs <that was funny>, golf balls, rocks...along with her own brood of chicks. She even steals chicks from the other hens lol

They dont seem to mind tho... Henrietta runs around constantly with chicks. Most are not hers lol The grand total i think is about 23 chicks she gathered....and a puppy lol

If you have one that loves to mother then it may work out well!

 

[Chickenaddict]

I have done this with great success before. I had 2 broodies, one was a serama hen the other a mixed bantam, the serama hatched only one chick out of 3 eggs the other hatched 3 babies out of 3 eggs, one had to be culled because of deformities which left her with 2. She was great with those 2 chicks for 1 week then all heck broke loose and she went after one of the chicks. I took those chicks from her and put them under my serama hen and she took them in with no problems. I agree with the others when they said the sooner the better.

 

[BluegrassSeramas]

It depends on the Mom for sure. I just did this over the weekend. Had only one serama chick hatch out of a batch, and I had 4 in the brooder. The Mom was small, so I could only give her 2 more chicks.
I slipped them under her at about 3am, and the next morning she was fine and huddling over them or peeping at them to eat and drink.

You just have to watch them.
Some will peck at them immediately, and some wont until later.

 

[Bluebutt]

Great, thank you for all of the input. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[HBuehler]

I have a very broody Leghorn but if I tried that she would probably kill the chick..nothing absolutely nothing gets near "her" chicks.The darn bird can't read to know they don't go broody but she can count her chicks