First Broody day 18 questions - DAY 31! UPDATE

[widgeonmangh]

Chicks update

Well it has been an interesting hatch.

Day 20 came and went with zip action,

I was beginning to wonder about the fertility of the roo, although I had seen the bulls eye on an egg that had been slipped in and incubated for a couple of days.

In any event, I did not see my first chick until day 24! I left it with mom for 3 day, figuring that she would soon abandon the next. Well on day 27 another chick began to pip the egg and hatch. So I knew mom wouldn't leave. I had intended to let mom raise them but the one in the next was needing to leave but mom was showing no signs of abandoning the eggs. So I set up a rubbermaid as a brood box and watched chick two hatch. On day 29 two more hatch and day 30 another. So here it is day 31 with 5 chicks in the brooder almost a week apart in age, and mom is still on the next, although there are only about 4 eggs left.

They are cute little devils though. Roo is pure Austrolorp and hens are Buff Orpington. Here are some pics.

So 5 total chicks not bad for a first time out and who knows what today brings! I learned much on the broody hen deal and will transfer the hen early on next time.

But it is awful easy to see how addicting this can be!

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

You mentioned transferring the hen...does that mean you are not letting her raise them?

 

[widgeonmangh]

No I am not going to let her raise them.

On one of the chicks I had gone out to check and it was on the coop floor cheeping VERY loudly but mom was still on the nest. There was no way that the chick was going to get back in. In a couple more hours it would have been toast. Soooo we decided to bring them in.

I have a covered grow out coop (8x8) with a roost, so they will be in the house until they are feathered out enough to be in the grow out coop with a good light in case it gets too cold. I hope to have them out there before Thanksgiving.

I will try letting mom raise the next batch, but with this one being so odd in timing and with the hatch we made the call to bring them in. Funny thing is we made the call when we had two chicks, now we have 5.

 

[coolchickens]

I had a hatch like that this summer. Other hens were sneaking in and laying when mama when to eat so the hatchings were dragged out for a few days. What I did was after day 3, when she had 5 chicks, I removed the rest of the eggs so she would leave and raise them for me. It was really weird that I also at this time had 3 other hens go broody and sitting on empty nests as I had removed their eggs so... I took the left over eggs and spread them out amoung the girls sitting and ea. ended up having 3 babies they thought were their own, evertything hatched and everyone was raised by a broody. It was wonderful!!! I didn't have to do anything except switch the eggs around. I did realize if you don't remove the unhatched eggs some mom's will not leave the nest to take care of the hatched ones so you have to watch for that.