I took two, one week old chicks from a mama to put with a single chick (from same clutch) that's in a brooder to give it friends. Has anyone done this?
Backstory novel for context:
I had a Silver Hamburg go sneaky broody on me and she appeared last Saturday with six chicks according to my son who called me while I was at work. On Sunday, I noted seven chicks (I think one hatched overnight). Finding the remaining eggs cold and given that she had been out and about for two days, I went to chuck the remaining eggs in the nest. I found two shrink wrapped but alive, one very weak and one vigorously cheeping and attempting to break free. I took them in and fired up the incubator. Then, over several hours, freed up both to where they could push out on their own when they were ready and put them back in the incubator. The vigorous one pretty much pushed out almost immediately. The other baby died the next morning, never really moving much. The next morning, the Hamburg had left one baby behind in the yard, cheeping loudly. She couldn't have cared less (in retrospect I wonder if she knew something was off with the chick). I took that chick and put it with the surviving chick I had assisted. This was Monday am. I did try to slip the baby under mama, that was unsuccessful. I've noticed over the past day increasing lethargy and labored breathing of the chick I had found in the yard. Anticipating it's demise, I have for lack of a better term, stolen two of the chicks from the mama outside. My theory behind taking two is hopefully it would be less stressful if they had a sibling with them. Mama still has four and seems fine after the drama of stealing her babies. I'm trying to avoid a situation where I'm trying to integrate a single chick to my flock. Also, we leave for vacation in three weeks and I don't want to leave a single chick that has imprinted on us for a week (it hadn't imprinted on us yet, but if it alone for the next three weeks, I would suspect it would). It won't be old enough to integrate yet when we leave.
Backstory novel for context:
I had a Silver Hamburg go sneaky broody on me and she appeared last Saturday with six chicks according to my son who called me while I was at work. On Sunday, I noted seven chicks (I think one hatched overnight). Finding the remaining eggs cold and given that she had been out and about for two days, I went to chuck the remaining eggs in the nest. I found two shrink wrapped but alive, one very weak and one vigorously cheeping and attempting to break free. I took them in and fired up the incubator. Then, over several hours, freed up both to where they could push out on their own when they were ready and put them back in the incubator. The vigorous one pretty much pushed out almost immediately. The other baby died the next morning, never really moving much. The next morning, the Hamburg had left one baby behind in the yard, cheeping loudly. She couldn't have cared less (in retrospect I wonder if she knew something was off with the chick). I took that chick and put it with the surviving chick I had assisted. This was Monday am. I did try to slip the baby under mama, that was unsuccessful. I've noticed over the past day increasing lethargy and labored breathing of the chick I had found in the yard. Anticipating it's demise, I have for lack of a better term, stolen two of the chicks from the mama outside. My theory behind taking two is hopefully it would be less stressful if they had a sibling with them. Mama still has four and seems fine after the drama of stealing her babies. I'm trying to avoid a situation where I'm trying to integrate a single chick to my flock. Also, we leave for vacation in three weeks and I don't want to leave a single chick that has imprinted on us for a week (it hadn't imprinted on us yet, but if it alone for the next three weeks, I would suspect it would). It won't be old enough to integrate yet when we leave.
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