How is everyone adding these young hens to the existing flocks? I am afraid to get more but would love some more hens. I was thinking next spring let a hen go broody and then when my new pullets arrive trade them for an egg she is sitting on. Does this work? And what are you doing to introduce the new ones? Thanks
Worked
GREAT for me Jeanette! I don't know if she was fussy the first night I tried to put them under my (by then ~3 week broody) Black Australorp (they were 2 days old) or it wasn't yet dark enough (*) or my lack of experience but I backed off the first time because she was getting up and I was afraid she would step on a chick I was trying to put under her. I planned to come back an hour later when it was really dark. But it started pouring buckets so I waited until the next night and was successful getting 7 chicks under her with not too much fuss. Went out early in the morning REALLY hoping she hadn't killed any "foreign" chicks, it was dark enough the birds were all still asleep on the roost as were Zorra and "her 7 (I hoped alive) babies. I had to sit there for almost an hour before it was light enough in the coop that any babies showed themselves. Been SMOOTH sailing since that morning.
What am I doing to introduce them to the flock?
Not a darned thing. They have a mama teaching them everything they need to know (unlike Zorra and her "sisters" who have never seen another chicken since they were stuffed in a box at the hatchery at < 1 day old). And she protects them from the other 8 hens to a degree I would say is well more than necessary. None have given them more than a passing glance. Maybe because they know she will beat the feathers off them if they get too close (because she has, repeatedly). One of the Faverolles (a frequent broody) is acting as an "aunt" and is almost always with Zorra and the chicks. The other Faverolles can come and go at will. The other BA got some serious "I am the largest hen
by far in this flock and I just got 2X bigger" wing and feather raising but I think Zorra figured out Echo is just a big doofus heading wherever she thinks there might be food and now she too can pretty much walk through the chicks at will. The other 5 - "fuggetabout it". They kind of come to the approximate "Zone of Zorra" and then run like mad to get past. Even the "
WE are the top of the flock and
WE won't let you forget that" Anconas.
I say GO FOR IT! No better way for a chick to grow up than with a hen. Zorra decided at 2 weeks that they should sleep in one of the nest boxes (2' off the ground) instead of in the brooding pen I made in the coop. Yes, at 2 weeks the chicks could fly up 2' with ease. Maybe Zorra was tired of being stuck in the pen until I got down there in the mornings (the coop itself has a light sensor controlled chicken door so she and the other girls are used to leaving the coop when the wake up) or the natural "sleeping off the ground is safer" chicken thing led her to move them. In any case, one evening she and the chicks hadn't gone into the brooding pen door but were all up in a nest box. At 4 weeks plus a couple of days, some chicks started sleeping on the 4' high roost with their "aunt", leaving Zorra and 2 chicks in the nest box. By 4.5 weeks, everyone was on the 4' roosts at night. Zorra is showing them how to forage, taking them a bit farther from the barn doors all the time. Couldn't find them yesterday afternoon until I went behind the house and saw Zorra with the "aunt" and 7 little chicken butts sticking out of a flower (AKA weed) bed.
It is great for the chicks. The now 3 Y/Os had to wait until we had time to supervise outside excursions, these chicks probably spent more time outside in a week than the older ones did in a month. And they have learned "this is food, this is food, this is food, here is food, come eat this" and where the nice shade is when the sun is high.
* though I could barely tell which end was tail and which had a beak.
rant ). Thanks!
