Can Momma hen lay eggs before weaning chicks or after?

[ThiefPouter06]

I have a "momma" hen that just laid an egg but still has a chick. I am not sure how old the chick is, plus the chick is part bantam so I cant go by size. Does the egg imply that the chick is weaned? I dont know when I can remove the hen safely.

 

[sourland]

Some hens will resume egg laying and still continue to care for their chicks. Why is it necessary to remove the hen?

 

[ThiefPouter06]

I ran out of places to put hens and their broods. I currently have three hens and their chicks. These two I moved to an empty 3' by 5' rabbit hutch. The hen seems to dislike it greatly. I cant move them back to the main coop because it has a 2in by 4in mesh door that the chicks squeeze out of and get eaten. I cant let them out because a redtail hawk has eaten over 20 chickens(young and old) in the past 2 monthes.

 

[karlamaria]

I ran out of places to put hens and their broods. I currently have three hens and their chicks. These two I moved to an empty 3' by 5' rabbit hutch. The hen seems to dislike it greatly. I cant move them back to the main coop because it has a 2in by 4in mesh door that the chicks squeeze out of and get eaten. I cant let them out because a redtail hawk has eaten over 20 chickens(young and old) in the past 2 monthes.

maybe you could fix the mesh door now lol, this way nothing can get out or be eaten?? do you not have a big enough coop for all your hens and chicks to live together? I also did the hutch, my coop was way to small for a crate in there so I put them in a hutch and moved them into my front porch, in the mean time I had my coop enlarged and pen also. its best to let the moms raise there brood with other birds, this way there all together and not hard to mingle with later. also my hen had chicks, and three weeks later she laid eggs, and now she is broody lol

 

[ThiefPouter06]

Well yes I do need to fix the door. My problem is I have many wyandottes that go broody at the sight of another broody or sound of chicks. Then they try to steal the broodies nest or chicks(one tried to steal a gamehens chicks, but settled on her abandoned eggs). it involves fighting and alot of cold eggs. Chaos insues! Plus I also have a gamehen who claims the whole (8' by 16') coop when hers hatch. Lets just say I have 3 broodies, 1 with 1 chick, another with 2(second batch) and another with 4. So my hatch rates have been horrible due to the chaos. Seperation is peaceful.