Chicks falling from nest??

[88Haywood88]

I have a hen that is sitting on a nest which she built on top of a tool cabiet in a garage. I want to let her hatch them out, but i'm worried about when the chicks are born. The top of the chest is about four feet off the ground. Can day old chicks survive the fall? I don't want to move her and the eggs because she is so tempermental. I only have two options, either let her hatch them out or remove the eggs, and throw them away. What should I do?

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Let her hatch them.

 

[WriterofWords]

Let her hatch them and as soon as she has little fuzzy butts under her move them!

 

[dianneS]

They would probably survive the fall, but I would be more concerned that she will decide to hop down and take them for a walk and they would be too afraid to hop down with her and they would get cold in the nest and die. I've had that happen before with a hen in an upper level nest box. One chick made the jump from the nest with mom and the other five stayed up there, got cold and all died, it was very upsetting.

When they have hatched move them some place lower to the ground so they can stick with mom when she's ready to venture out with them.