Do Chickens Get Married?

[centrarchid]

Those blue barrels discussed in another thread could be a good shelter for tied out birds.
Set upright with entrance hole low.
You probably already know this.

Yes. Even with dogs, rooster tied out like that hard to defend from Great-horned Owls. Owls are too close almost all the time. .

 

[centrarchid]

Love Heart with chick have a very small home range that is at best 30 feet x 100 feet. I have yet to see them go to water station. All nutrition supplied by foraging. Even so they still visit Trace's pen at least once a day where chick readily goes to hand out under daddy's feet. Chick is very heavy for its size as forage quality is exeptional. Bulk of what hen and chick are consuming appears to be caterpillars that are very abundant this time of year. They are also eating some earthworms. We leaving strips of taller vegetation since they support far more eats for chickens. Hen is standing.

Love Heart does intensive digging in some locations where she finds multiple caterpillars.

 

[centrarchid]

Love Heart getting ready to come back into lay. She is in very very good weight, just like chick. I will have to prepare to care for chick unless if move in with Trace. The chicks do that sometimes. Nest will be upgraded today.

 

[centrarchid]

Trace got out of pen while I was mowing. On tie-cord now. His first time and a bit scared. He will calm, then placed near nest.

 

[aart]

Love Heart getting ready to come back into lay. She is in very very good weight, just like chick. I will have to prepare to care for chick unless if move in with Trace. The chicks do that sometimes. Nest will be upgraded today.

How old is chick?

 

[centrarchid]

7 days. We are at least 14 days for start of broodiness so enough time for chick to be OK if got getting wet. It will still be small enough for a Coopers Hawk to take if adult chickens do not prevent.

 

[aart]

7 days. We are at least 14 days for start of broodiness so enough time for chick to be OK if got getting wet. It will still be small enough for a Coopers Hawk to take if adult chickens do not prevent.

7 days seems early for hen to be weaning chick?

 

[centrarchid]

7 days seems early for hen to be weaning chick?

If she stays on track, then weaning will occur about 21 days post-hatch. She is about to come back into lay because weight coming back up and she is looking for a nest site. She will still tend chick until a couple of days before going broody. She will drive it off for a couple days before settling on eggs for count. She needs to have chick on its own by then, otherwise caring of it will conflict with interest of next brood. This were broody can make a difference. Hen benefits from survival of current and up coming brood. So does rooster, if he has not other hens to mate with.

 

[diamondsilkies]

What an interesting thread! Excited to see what happens next. It's so great for your kids to be exposed to/learning all this.

I have a slightly similar situation going on at my place, but with two silkies. Earlier this year, one of my hens went broody. She is very bonded to one of my roosters, who was getting in lots of fights with my other roo, so I separated them in the broody pen together, intending to move him somewhere else before the chicks hatched. I lost track of time with the brood and they hatched earlier than I was expecting. My rooster seemed to be okay with the chicks, so I decided to leave him, but keep a close eye on them. This hen is also a very fierce broody, so I figured the chicks would be okay.

The rooster has been a wonderful co-parent to the chicks, calling them over to eat and letting them snuggle in his feathers. They are almost three months old now, so it's just about time for the parents to be integrated back into the flock (chicks will stay in the broody/grow out pen until they are old enough to join the flock). This morning, I let everyone out to free-range and noticed that only the rooster was with the chicks, acting even more parental than usual (sticking very close, escorting them around the yard, still calling them to food). I looked in the nest to see that my hen had gone broody again.

Before now, I'd never heard of roosters taking on older clutches so that the hen can start a new brood, but I think that might be what's happening with them.

 

[aart]

If she stays on track, then weaning will occur about 21 days post-hatch. She is about to come back into lay because weight coming back up and she is looking for a nest site.

Ah, I see. Thought they didn't lay until after weaning.