hatching eggs naturally

[janetsaunders6]

We have a young pekin bantam who has starting sitting on two eggs but I am concerned that she has stopped eating and drinking and may have gone broody.

We have experienced this before with our Wyandotte hens who go broody regularly but don't have a Rooster with them. Normally when they go broody we separate them out to another coup or dunk them in cold water to break the broodiness quickly.

Should I try and move the bantam hen, who does have a Rooster as part of the family, or just let nature take it's course?

Will she take the egg through to hatching or should I remove it?

We would really like to have naturally hatched chicks rather than incubated ones.

We are a bit new to all of this so would appreciate some advice.

I don't want to lose the bantam hen just because she stops eating and drinking. We are particularly worried about the latter given it's so warm and dry at present.

Cheers

Janet

 

[sourland]

Most hens will leave the nest at least once a day to eat, drink and defecate. Many leave food and water within 'beaks reach' of the nest - a mistake that frequently causes the hen to defecate in the nest. If you are positive that she is not leaving the nest, remove her once a day so that she eats, drinks and defecates. Leave the rest up to her - she is programmed to handle this.

 

[donrae]

Let her handle it. Hens have been brooding chicks for thousands of years and they don't kill themselves. You probably won't see them leave unless you're out there all day. You can look for a big ol broody poop-they're usually easy to spot. She'll get off once a day for anywhere from 3-40 min, eat, drink, poop, do some hygeine/dust bathe, maybe terrorize her coop mates, then settle back on the nest.

If you have other fertile eggs you can also slip them under her. Or, next time your wyandotte goes broody, you can put the bantam's eggs under her. A hen has no idea what eggs she's setting on, they'll even hatch other species eggs.

 

[ll]

I vote to allow her to hatch the eggs.

Leave the eggs under her and get ready for babies!
My hen was broody 3x in a row this year. She hatched 2 babies this week and is a happy Momma now. I don't know if it will break her cycle but we'll see - at least it's an exciting and fun project!
I didn't want mine to starve either. I gently lifted her off the nest & out of the coop once every other day to eat/drink/poop/dust-bathe because it seemed like she was willing to sit there 24/7. I would also bring her a tiny bowl of blueberries and oats occasionally to help fill her belly. The last 4 days of incubation I didn't take her off the nest, but still brought her food & water. I read they won't eat before hatching but mine gobbled up a bunch the night before hatch.

 

[janetsaunders6]

Our bantum hen ended up hatching one chick who is now a few days old but now I don't know what I am supposed to do.

Do I need special chick food?

Do we leave them in the coup they are in which has a nesting box at the top and then a ladder down to a small run?

Do we need to move them both to somewhere bigger?

How long will the mother hen stay with the chick?

What age can we start thinking about letting the hen and chick go outside in a protected run that we have?

How old does the chick need to be for us to try introducing it to the rest of the gang which includes three bantum hens (including the mohter hen) and a rooster?

Is there anything else we need to do?