Different aged chicks

[Hipenbec]

My Cochin hen went broody........again, but instead of trying to break her from it I decided I would just let her sit on the eggs. The problem was she wasn't sitting on her eggs she was sitting on another hens eggs that actually kept laying. She kept taking those eggs and finally we decided to mark them. After that the hen that was laying decided she wanted to be broody now too, but all of that is another story. Fast forward some the first chick hatched and I found it dead in the coop. The next chick hatched on 22 Jun and I saved it from the hens trying to protect it from one another. We had another one die, next chick hatched on the 24th. Somehow eggs were removed from the coop and I found two of the marked eggs broken behind the coop. The next chick didnt hatch until 5 Jul, the fourth one on 8 Jul and the fifth on 13 July. There were two more eggs one of which I could smell was starting to rot and the other one was way past the 21 day mark so we checked it and it wasn't even furtile. The older two are always together hanging out with their dad and the younger three stay with their mom(s) which are both still broody and I don't know why. Thats a different thread though. I put all the chicks in the brooder box at night together which is inside the chicken coop with a heat lamp and they get along fine, but im worried the age difference might cause an issue soon. As anyone experienced having a group of chicks together like that with an almost three-four week age gap? The dad is a very large, beautiful Cochin and the mom is actually a white Ameraucana. All the chicks are black though.

 

[JaeG]

Some people can get their hens to successfully sit while still part of the flock, but you do have to be super vigilant about removing new eggs daily, and some hens just can't resist nest swapping, so are best isolated while they are broody. Having two broodies complicates things even further as you have discovered.

I don't think the age gap will matter while the chicks are this little. Just watch out when the older chicks are around 3-4 months old that they don't start bullying their younger siblings, but with older birds to keep them in line that shouldn't be a problem.

I can't help you with why they are all black (and a bunch of cuties they are too). Hopefully someone else can.

 

[lesjsmith]

I too am going to have chicks where the first batch was sat and then a week later I had my other incubator fixed so I started setting 4 or 5 more eggs a day over 4 days. Is there going to be a problem with the first group being a week older? Hopefully I made sense in my explaination.

 

[JaeG]

I too am going to have chicks where the first batch was sat and then a week later I had my other incubator fixed so I started setting 4 or 5 more eggs a day over 4 days. Is there going to be a problem with the first group being a week older? Hopefully I made sense in my explaination.

If you have two incubators you could use one for incubation and one for hatching so your eggs continue to be set at the correct parameters for their stage of incubation. Then you just move the eggs that need to be locked down into the hatching incubator where the conditions are correct for the final stage and hatch. Otherwise you will have to raise the humidity for your older eggs until they have hatched, but this could impact your younger eggs as they won't be losing as much moisture as they should, and if you readjust the humidity in an extreme way to try and compensate once the first batch has hatched it can cause the younger embryos issues such as not being able to get into the correct position for hatching.

 

[lesjsmith]

If you have two incubators you could use one for incubation and one for hatching so your eggs continue to be set at the correct parameters for their stage of incubation. Then you just move the eggs that need to be locked down into the hatching incubator where the conditions are correct for the final stage and hatch. Otherwise you will have to raise the humidity for your older eggs until they have hatched, but this could impact your younger eggs as they won't be losing as much moisture as they should, and if you readjust the humidity in an extreme way to try and compensate once the first batch has hatched it can cause the younger embryos issues such as not being able to get into the correct position for hatching.

This is exactly my setup. I have two incubators now. I will have a week between the first batch and then there will only be a day for four days. Thanks!