Hello I’m excited to absorb all information. I have 5 hens and 2 roosters. And 3 sitting on eggs but as the eggs hatch mama has abandoned them. I can’

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What I've experienced recently, it's best if the nests are not too close to each other, first time mothers seem to be a bit dumb, sometimes they're not sure which nest is theirs and will jump from nest to nest, this is a big problem when the chicks have hatched because it doesn't give them much time to recognize them as theirs and the chicks also might confuse mothers. Whenever I tried to put a chick under a hen and it saw what I was doing, she wouldn't let me, but if you put a piece of cardboard or something that might block her sight and help you lift her slightly, you can push a chick in and if she's basically within a day or two of hatching, she will think it's hers.
Just had a crash course on broody hens by the numbers and it's not something I'll allow to happen again, it's stressful for them and you, the hens might attack a chick or/and fight with another chicken if they get to close. Just yesterday we had that happen and one of the hens injured a chick in it's wing pretty badly (she drew quite a bit of blood :() , amazingly this chick is like Rambo or something because later that night it climbed up with mom to the roost (have no idea how he managed) and in the morning he flew down... I think I might just call him Rambo or Sarah Connor if it's a girl, this little one is incredibly resilient; just two weeks ago his mom had problems recognizing him (which she doesn't now) and grabbed it by the leg and injured it badly also, we never really knew if she broke it's leg or pulled a tendon, it avoided use of it's leg for about a week and followed mom around on one leg with help of it's wings, then about a week and a half ago it started to use the leg again slowly and now it was perfectly fine.
Like I said, try to avoid many hens with chicks at the same time (might just be my breed but it's better to be safe than sorry). Now that all our hens have older. Chicks (about 2-5 weeks old) and the first timers have sort of settled, we rarely have fights or incidents.
 

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