Do I separate this hen??

[chickens really]

I move my Hens all the time into a Brooder pen and have never had one give up. The other Birds could potentially kill all the Chicks as they are not Broody and don't understand the Peeps of the Chicks. I reintroduce once the Chicks are up and running with Momma at around 3 days to a week old.

 

[kwhites634]

I must be doing this chicken business all wrong; listening to the wrong people. Someone once told me that hens know what they're doing & have been doing it that way for a long time without cardboard, crates or cages separating them & their chicks from the rest of the flock; seems reasonable to me to let them do what they do best.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I must be doing this chicken business all wrong; listening to the wrong people. Someone once told me that hens know what they're doing & have been doing it that way for a long time without cardboard, crates or cages separating them & their chicks from the rest of the flock; seems reasonable to me to let them do what they do best.

The way I look at it there are two sides to this. Hens have been hatching and raising chicks with the flock for thousands of years. Just from instincts they know what they are doing better than we ever will.

But the other side is that we now shoehorn them into tiny spaces so the hen doesn't have room to work. The other chickens are right on top of her and the chicks. To me that 4 + 10 that is so quoted on here for space requirements is tiny when a hen is raising chicks. We don't allow the broody hen to raise them but feel we must always interfere. Brutal chickens that disrupt the flock are no longer eaten as a matter of course. They are pets, not livestock, so expectations have changed. Oh, rich people did keep decorative or show chickens as pets but working chickens were expected to forage for most of their food in decent weather and even in bad to a certain degree, which meant they were able to follow their natural instincts instead of us micromanaging their diet and giving them a lot of free time to get into mischief. The vast majority of people on this forum don't have broody hens to raise their chicks and integrate them so they have to handle that themselves, often in tight spaces.

I'm getting beyond broody hens and their chicks but the point is that we don't keep them the same way they used to be kept so we have to change the way we keep them. For many small backyard flocks the old ways often don't work. So we have to come up with these techniques to help them get along.

 

[Jman45]

Whenever they hatch, how are the chicks going too eat while In the nest? And I can’t separate it’s too late the mom is already setting now. How long should I keep the chicks with he mom before I seperate them to have some sold.

I move my Hens all the time into a Brooder pen and have never had one give up. The other Birds could potentially kill all the Chicks as they are not Broody and don't understand the Peeps of the Chicks. I reintroduce once the Chicks are up and running with Momma at around 3 days to a week old.[/QUOTE

 

[chickens really]

Whenever they hatch, how are the chicks going too eat while In the nest? And I can’t separate it’s too late the mom is already setting now. How long should I keep the chicks with he mom before I seperate them to have some sold.

I'm not understanding? I move My Mommas and nest into a Brooder pen. She has lots of room to do what is needed and separated from the flock.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Whenever they hatch, how are the chicks going too eat while In the nest?

The chicks do not need to eat in the nest. They absorb the yolk before they hatch, they can live off of that yolk for three days, that's why they can be mailed. They do not have to eat or drink. The broody hen will bring them off the nest adn take them to food and drink when it is time. Just have food and water where the chicks can get to it.

And I can’t separate it’s too late the mom is already setting now.

Some people move broody hens and their eggs to different nests and it works. Sometimes the hen breaks from being broody when you try to move her. Thee are risks involved if you try it.

How long should I keep the chicks with he mom before I seperate them to have some sold.

You can take chicks away form a broody hen any time you want. Just keep them warm and provide food and water.