Feral Chickens

[wolfgirl9]

Recently A bantam hen of mine hatched two chicks. It has been a few weeks and they are growing fast. They run wild in my yard because any time I get near them they squawk and run away. I'm not sure if I should put the chicks in a pen with their mother like my other chickens and let them out occasionally or let them become feral and wild. I put them in a pen once and the poor things were patrolling the fence line looking for a way out. Currently they are still running wild and i'm not sure if I should confine them to the coop or not.Please Help!

 

[centrarchid]

Ultimately, bantams will be better served if confined. You may have a life stage issue making them want to avoid adults. Confine them separately.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t know how you manage you chickens, what your goals are, or what your set-up is like. All these should be a part of your decision. Some people pretty much let their chickens become feral. That’s pretty close to a model small farmers have used for thousands of years to keep flocks that feed them with eggs and meat. Predators are a big risk and you can have other problems doing that, like them hiding eggs or getting into stuff like your garden where you don’t want them.

It sounds like you keep your other chickens inside fences and that the bantam hen is still taking care of her chicks. If you coop and run are large enough you can put that hen and her two chicks in with your main flock. She should take care of them and raise them with the flock so they are integrated. They will have to take care of their pecking order issues themselves when she weans them, but if they have enough room they can manage that. If you don’t have enough room for the hen to safely raise her chicks with the flock you will almost certainly have issues when you try to integrate them anyway. Space is really important.

If space is tight you can pen the broody and her chicks in their own coop and run separate from the main flock. At some point, normally between 4 to 9 weeks (it can be a tad earlier or a lot later), she will wean them, stop taking care of them. You’ll then need to integrate the hen back with the flock and eventually the chicks too.

If you want them to be pets it’s a lot easier to tame them if they are penned up than if they are running feral. As part of her instinct that broody will try to keep them away from you, protecting them from you. It takes more effort to tame chicks raised by a broody than those you raise yourself in a brooder. But you can do it.

Good luck!