HEChicken thanks for the pics. So if I'm reading this correctly the hen and eggs stay in the laying box until hatched then you move them here for a day or 2 until the hen accepts them then you let them out to be with the flock? Or do you move the hen and eggs here to let the hen sit and hatch? If you move them here after they hatch do you move the chicks first or the hen?
Thanks for being so helpful it is so nice to go to a place to get help.
I don't let most of my hens actually sit on eggs. My experience is that the eggs either get cracked and broken, or contaminated from all the coming and going with poopy feet. So I collect all eggs out of every nest box, every day. This gives me greater control over what is being hatched here as well, so I don't have a bunch of hens hatching out barnyard mutts that I have no use for. Instead, I run my incubator and hatch the eggs that I want hatched.
Many people say to put a pipped egg under a hen and in feeling it hatch under her, she'll accept it more easily. Personally I've had minimal success doing that. I've had more hens attack the chick as it hatches, than I've had accept the chick. So I prefer to let the chicks fully hatch in the incubator. On the day they hatch - even if it is early in the morning - they are fine to stay in the incubator until it is dark outside. Then, once it is fully dark, I take the chick(s), grab a broody hen from out of the coop, put her in one of the broody coops with the chick(s) under her and leave her for the night. By morning she has accepted the new chicks AND the move to the broody pen. I've done this dozens of times and only a couple of times did it not work.
The hen will continue to sit for up to 48 hours. This is "pre-programmed" to allow for any late-hatching eggs to complete hatching. Even if there are no more eggs under her, she'll continue to sit for this time because Mother Nature tells her to. The chicks don't need to eat and drink for the first 48-72 hours so they are perfectly happy during this time. They will spend most of the time under the hen, emerging for quick explorations close to her. She will start to cluck-cluck-cluck to them and respond to their various sounds. At some pre-determined time she will decide it is time to show the chicks how to find food and at that point she'll leave the nest and lead them to food and water, encouraging them to sample both. She will not return to the nest, however she will frequently sit to allow the chicks to get under her to warm up. How often they need to warm up depends on the time of year. As time goes by, they will spend less time under her and more time out learning to forage. I only leave them in the pens pictured above for up to a week. By that time the hen knows the sounds of her chicks and will protect them while attacking any other bird that approaches - including chicks that to us look identical to hers. She can tell them apart from their sounds and will treat them as intruders and a threat to her chicks. Likewise, after the first few days, the chicks are bonded to their mother and will respond to her cluck-cluck-clucking sound and not the same sound made by another hen. They will follow their mother and eat and drink where and when she tells them to.
I set up "chick creepers" (see my blog link in my signature) that contain chick food where the chicks can access it but the adults can't. The mothers very quickly learn where these are (I have two set up in different locations) and though they can't eat from them themselves, the mothers will make sure the chicks get access to them regularly so they are well-fed. The rest of the time they will take them out and show them what is good to eat. That is the primary difference in my mind between raising them myself and the hen raising them. When I raise them, they will eat the chick starter but regard anything else I offer as poison. But with a mother hen saying "this is good - eat this", they will try anything, so from the beginning are learning which vegetation is good, which bugs are delicious and which bugs they should avoid.
