EMERGENCY! Baby chick found in coop on the floor, barely alive! UPDATE

[77horses]

Mrs. Fluffy Puffy :

How can you say you have 3 adorably cute chicks and NOT POST PICTURES OF THEM??????

I know! Sorry!

I've yet to go and get some pictures...The broody, Pumpkin, and 3 chicks were just outside for a little while and she took a dust bath. The 3 chicks didn't really do anything...Hope ran around and followed Pumpkin everywhere, while May is still kinda wobbly and so is Jasmine, so they mainly just laid in the sun and watched.

But here's my concern; Pumpkin seems to almost completely ignore her chicks.

Aren't broodies usually fluffed up with their wings down so the chicks can run under her for protection if a predator or enemy comes along? At least that's what our BO hen did.

she would put her wings down and fluff up and let her chicks follow her everywhere, and whenever one was too far away, she would make sure to wait for it or go back for it while free ranging. Pumpkin, on the other hand, won't fluff up or anything. She'll puff up her neck feathers if another chicken comes near her, but she did this before the eggs hatched too, such as when she was setting and when she would walk around for a quick water/food break. So I don't think she's doing it to protect her chicks, but to protect herself because she's been setting for a long time and the other hens are kinda rejecting and mean to her right now because she's finally off the eggs.
Soooooo......right now I have two options. I'm going back to my mom's house later today with my rooster, Ivory. There are no chickens at my mom's house, but we've built a coop there, planning to get some chickens (1 rooster and 3-4 hens). We have Ivory, my house-rooster, and now we have the 3 chicks, who (I hope) turn out to be hens. I wanted to bring the 3 chicks with me to live with Ivory, who is still young and won't hurt the chicks (but if he does we can separate them). I could put them in the coop in a brooder box with a light and everything. Normally that's what I would do such as if I was hatching in an incubator, BUT in this case there's a broody hen and I really REALLY don't want to take the hens from Pumpkin. I always think that if a broody hen goes through all that trouble to hatch out some eggs of her own, she should have the reward of raising them, too.

So the other option besides just taking the chicks with me is to bring Pumpkin, too...At least until the chicks get old enough to be on their own.

But then again, we're unsure of the chicks' gender so if some or all of them don't turn out to be hens, as planned, that wouldn't be good.

And there's a good chance that at least one of them is a rooster. All I can do is hope that they turn out to be hens.

Any thoughts??? So far we're planning on bringing Pumpkin and her 3 chicks with us to my mom's house to live with a young rooster in a brand new coop I built. Then when the chicks get old enough, we'll keep all the hens (which, as I said, I hope turn out to be hens and not roosters because we can't keep any roosters!) and bring Pumpkin back to her original home here.

Thanks! I think I'm going to move this discussion to another thread somewhere because this topic is no longer appropriate to be in this forum.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

I had the same problem you have. I had 2 broodies and they had just hatched out abunch of chicks and they would just jump out of the nest and leave the chicks, and they would go eat/drink etc and wouldn't go back to them? So I ended up taking them away because we're leaving the next day and I didn't want anything happening to them. So I don't know what to tell you?

 

[77horses]

OK, so the final decision is I'm taking the broody hen and the chicks with me. I'd rather do that than leave them here for 2 weeks with no one but my father checking on them, and he's not as experienced with chickens as I am (no offense!

) and then find out that Pumpkin isn't a good broody hen and abandoned the chicks. If she doesn't take care of them like a normal broody should when I take them with me, at least I'll know to take the chicks and keep them in a brooder box and bring Pumpkin back here. Whether she hatched them out or not, I'd rather have to take them away than leave them with a bad broody hen. But this is her first time so I'll give her a chance to see if she'll protect them, etc.

Hopefully it works! Now off to get Pumpkin and her 3 chicks ready for the 1-hour ride to their new home!

 

[Shank197]

He just opened his eyes for the first time!!!

That gives me hope that we saved him just in time! For now all I can do is pray and keep him warm and hope he makes it.

I've been talking to him and making peeping noises and he seems to sometimes respond to it

anything else I can do??

My baby chick is going through this right now! About 20 min ago we found her and she wasn’t breathing or anything we got her to start breathing and now she is opening her eyes and will chirp if I touch her, she won’t move though, but will shake her head when she gets water through the syringe, I’m sooo sad it’s Easter and this is my kids chick:/ any update on yours?