HELP - Having some trouble/issues - first broody hen, and my first time... :/

[Cari C]

Don't cry but remember that we humans don't know doodley squat about hatching chicks and that shows up when you allow your hen to sit on only 4 eggs, the rest is downhill from there.

Allow your hens to go broody in a good nest box with a roof that can be TOTALY closed off incase you decide to move her. This box should be resting on the Earth and as a base there should be a chunk of turf inside to provide humidity for the hatching eggs.

Resist moving your chicks, the brooding hens, or their nest for any reason. Especially resist that urge to involve your self in the birthing of baby chicks. Even at 70 years young I still don't consider myself a qualified chick midwife and IMHO neither should you.

Everyone wants to "enjoy" free range poultry but the first thing most do is to begin free ranging by trying to help chicks hatch that for what ever reason are to weak to do so themselves. That's a bad start. You may should call it counting your chickens before they hatch.

Feed a good commercial grade laying pellet, and keep your hens and roosters fit and trimt. Fat roosters don't fertilize very many eggs and fat hens have a difficult time laying any eggs.

Next (and maybe most importantly) teach yourself how to properly gather, mark, store, and incubate your eggs.

Handle them (the eggs) genteelly and only once with clean hands both before they go into the incubator,

Candle at about day #10 and discard all the bad eggs. Then if you wish to move the eggs to a hatcher do so 9 or 10 days later. By all means keep the door shut on your incubator until after 23 days have PASSED. Do this regardless of all the peeping noises you hear coming from inside your incubator or even

from beneath your brood hen. Live baby chickens IMHO are much prettier than stiff, cold baby, dead, chickens. So don't handle your peeps to death.

By now your brood hen, nest box and all should be in a natal pen where the hen and her chicks can get acquainted or bond for a few days before they are introduced to the flock.

Look back at the prior posts and you will be floored by how many previous posts there are about hens that someone thought that a varmint had run off with only for the hen to turn up a little over 3 weeks later with a dozen or so biddies in tow. In fact I seem to remember one in the last few days.

Finally for only 7 dollars and change you can buy this little book and study it carefully.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/guide_to_better_hatching.html

The story you told in the end about people thinking that their hens had run off, or gotten caught by a predator, is what I was thinking when I discovered the hidden hen and her small clutch of 4 eggs - it just was what it was, so I let it play out. A little later I found this second clutch of 8 eggs. I knew I had to move them into their own coop, which I did. I was NOT trying to help the egg hatch. Having been a vet tech for over 20 years, I do not jump in to help a mom having babies, unless I know I have to; that was not the case here, this was an accident. I felt a little defensive about this after reading your response to me, just so you are aware, sometimes it is all in your presentation. My background also keeps me from having fat animals, it goes against my nature. The book you left the link for, is it only for incubating eggs? I don't have an incubator, I wasn't planning on hatching eggs, this all has been unfolding as I go. I would like to find a good book on all things chicken; free ranging, hens hatching their own eggs, roosters, flock mentality, etc. If you know of a good one, that would be great, thanks!

 

[Shezadandy]

YaY! Ok, I will need to hit the feed store tomorrow, because I only have Layer crumbles. I moved mama and eggs into a coop by themselves on Friday, so no one could interfere with them. I have a rogue ground squirrel that somehow knows if an egg has a live chick in it and I lost 2 before I realized what was happening. I didn't plan on hatching any eggs when I started this whole shebang back in November, so this is unchartered territory. I don't have an incubator or plans to get one. Anyhow, I had put the baby waterer in there for Enid, it was all I had and when I grab a bag of Starter, I've got a baby feeder too, I am getting so excited!! A friend lost her chicks all at once I think 3 days after they hatched, so I am guarded right now. My horse has a half barrel, 30 gals, it's about 2 ft high, straight sides, nothing to grab onto. I do keep dog crate bottoms with about an inch of water in them, because we almost broke a couple of records this summer with high temps and I found the only thing that the chickens went for was standing in mud or water. The heat is starting to break a little, am hoping by the time I let Enid and baby/babies out, there should be no need for those anymore. I have no problem going back to trickling the hose all day, if needed, it keeps the dust down as well. I am still laughing of thinking of other hens just invading the broody's space like that! I am fascinated with the thought of them talking to and listening to their babies in eggs, but it makes perfect sense! and that one egg being too gross to eat, was an understatement. I was a vet tech for 20 yrs and I got curious and started to crack the bad egg open..... YUK! I ended it chucking it over my wall into the street!

I also had no thoughts of hatching chicks until a hen went broody- she'd already plucked her belly so I found her some eggs- didn't have a rooster old enough yet. Not getting an incubator because if I do, I will hatch out tons of chicks! Having to wait for a broody will put some discipline in waiting... hehehah Instead of the crazy cat lady it would be the crazy chicken lady. Having only experienced one bad egg form a store bought dozen, I hope to never smell that ever again! I'll bet a critter is feasting on it though.

Ohh varmits! How I hate them! I actually grew up in Tucson- left for the NW when in my early 20's and haven't missed the desert and the heat, only the people. I also haven't missed the snakes and all the other necessarily opportunistic critters.

With respect to waterers, you can put rocks in the bottom so if the chick gets into it, the top part is shallow but the hens can drink between the rocks for the extra volume. My broody kept demolishing everything I put out for them to drink from outside. She left their chick waterer alone in the coop, but I put it outside and bam, knocked over. Will the chicks have access to your horse tub? I'm not sure what the solution is there- if the hen doesn't spend time there chances are it won't be an issue, but within a couple weeks they'll be jumping and flapping those wings.

I actually use poultry cups for the flock and love them- I saw our little broody babies using them at 2-3 weeks, sitting on the PVC pipe. I can put frozen 2 liter bottles into the 5 gallon bucket to keep the source cold when we get these awful heatwaves. What I wound up doing about the broody knocking over chick waters is taking a 5-gallon bucket lid and putting a heavy rock over it, and filling the lid. She knocked over everything else and they were too small to use the poultry cups at that time. If you're not adverse to leaving a trickling hose, maybe have it trickle into something similar that's weighted down, and the constant flow should keep it cooler- the dog crate bottoms might well do the trick if the water isn't too deep for a chick.

 

[WVduckchick]

Cari, incubating is wayyy more addictive than broody hatching. Its too easy to throw a few dozen in at one time! Lol! Watching one zip and pop out of its egg is one of the most amazing things to witness. I was hooked (and hard, I might add) with the first hatch. Now I have 3 incubators! But I hope to let the broodies do more of it from now on. Them raising the chicks is alot easier. I'm in the process of a pen addition, and building a special area, just for broodies.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Quote:
Yes, I realize that the link to the book I posted is all about incubating and hatching eggs, but incubating and hatching eggs is the subject of this part of the forum. In my opinion anyway that is the beginning of bringing chicks into this world. I must vigorously disagree with you about which part of chicken husbandry is the most fun because while a little knowledge, a lot of hard work, and a smidgen of dumb luck will regularly result in a 90 or 95% hatch using an incubator, there is still something special when you see one of those little bright eyed puff balls peaking out at you from under a hens' wing. There is usually no way that a chicken keeper could hatch enough biddies under a mother hen to keep his or her family in chicken salad for a year. But using Mother Nature instead of the Electric Company to my way of thinking is like smacking a pinata on Christmas morning to see what Santa brought you.

 

[WVduckchick]

I do agree that the first peek of a chick from under its mother is a sight to behold! I think I cried the first time. The difference is watching the process happen in an incubator! Knowing that you did it all yourself, without natures help. They are both quite special in my book. Both miracles to me! But Hens aren't always broody, and they can sometimes be a handful. Putting eggs in an incubator is easy, therefore making it difficult to stop!

 

[WVduckchick]

Back to the original post....how many chicks hatched??

 

[Cari C]

Back to the original post....how many chicks hatched??

Another cute, yellow fuzzy live chick this afternoon!!!!

I had to fix my fence today, so I am pooped, but so happy!! Now just 4 eggs left, a little behind on the hatching schedule. They are in a coop alone, no sister hens to get in the way, so there are 3 available nesting boxes, which I kept meaning to cut the dividing walls out of, but kept forgetting. Now I wish I had, the chicks wandered in & out and Enid followed them into a different box, leaving the 4 eggs. I tucked them under her in the new box and she is still on them now. I think I need to make it one big box as soon as I can. What do you guys think? Also, thank you Kelsey, GREAT idea for putting rocks in the water containers!!!! I am zonked, going to get to bed soon. Love the little emoti with the popcorn! Looks like he's watching my silly running one!

 

[Cari C]

Cari, incubating is wayyy more addictive than broody hatching. Its too easy to throw a few dozen in at one time! Lol! Watching one zip and pop out of its egg is one of the most amazing things to witness. I was hooked (and hard, I might add) with the first hatch. Now I have 3 incubators! But I hope to let the broodies do more of it from now on. Them raising the chicks is alot easier. I'm in the process of a pen addition, and building a special area, just for broodies.

Here is another question - If Enid is too busy running after these chicks, should I see if one of my Barred Rocks would set on the remaining eggs? They are the only others who seem to care, lol

 

[Cari C]

I also had no thoughts of hatching chicks until a hen went broody- she'd already plucked her belly so I found her some eggs- didn't have a rooster old enough yet. Not getting an incubator because if I do, I will hatch out tons of chicks! Having to wait for a broody will put some discipline in waiting... hehehah Instead of the crazy cat lady it would be the crazy chicken lady. Having only experienced one bad egg form a store bought dozen, I hope to never smell that ever again! I'll bet a critter is feasting on it though.

Ohh varmits! How I hate them! I actually grew up in Tucson- left for the NW when in my early 20's and haven't missed the desert and the heat, only the people. I also haven't missed the snakes and all the other necessarily opportunistic critters.

With respect to waterers, you can put rocks in the bottom so if the chick gets into it, the top part is shallow but the hens can drink between the rocks for the extra volume. My broody kept demolishing everything I put out for them to drink from outside. She left their chick waterer alone in the coop, but I put it outside and bam, knocked over. Will the chicks have access to your horse tub? I'm not sure what the solution is there- if the hen doesn't spend time there chances are it won't be an issue, but within a couple weeks they'll be jumping and flapping those wings.

I actually use poultry cups for the flock and love them- I saw our little broody babies using them at 2-3 weeks, sitting on the PVC pipe. I can put frozen 2 liter bottles into the 5 gallon bucket to keep the source cold when we get these awful heatwaves. What I wound up doing about the broody knocking over chick waters is taking a 5-gallon bucket lid and putting a heavy rock over it, and filling the lid. She knocked over everything else and they were too small to use the poultry cups at that time. If you're not adverse to leaving a trickling hose, maybe have it trickle into something similar that's weighted down, and the constant flow should keep it cooler- the dog crate bottoms might well do the trick if the water isn't too deep for a chick.

what are poultry cups and you grew up in AZ?!!

 

[Shezadandy]

what are poultry cups and you grew up in AZ?!!

Yay, two fluffy butts!!


Yep, grew up in AZ with horses and dogs. Every time it gets hot here (these last couple weeks have been awful) I wonder how I managed, but I suppose growing up in the heat it wasn't as big of a deal... but now my heat tolerance is GONE!

Poultry cups (type that into Amazon) -- can be screwed into a bucket or PVC pipe- just drill 3/8" hole, put a little bit of white plumbing tape around the threads on the poultry cups and voila! The only 'training' I had to do was fill the cups once. When they go to drink, their beaks hit the trigger which moves all directions, filling the cup.

In the heat, a bucket setup is better because the water that sits in 3/4" PVC pipe will get very, very hot- and whatever's in the pipe is what comes out in the cup. Up here, hot water is a short lived problem, so I opted for pvc pipe set-up- those orange dots are the poultry cups.

If you start with something like a 5 gallon horse bucket which has thicker plastic sides- lots of plastic for the threads to take hold vs. a home depot type bucket (pictured above) which is thin where it may be prone to leak just because there's not enough plastic for it to grip. I put a 2 gallon version inside the coop and a 5 gallon version outside. They make something similar that you might see in feed stores like the hen hydrater or whatever, but those have poultry nipples, not poultry cups. The poultry nipples, especially with older birds that haven't learned to use them don't take to them well in some cases. I find poultry nipples are more prone to leak. So far I've only had one cup leak- I did have to replace it, but it's not any harder than replacing a light bulb.

Then in a shady spot, put the 5-gallon bucket on a couple of bricks or what have you so the cups are installed towards the bottom edge of the bucket, making use of the whole volume of water, and elevating it for your adults-- and for little birds, put a couple brick "steps" up to one so they can reach- even the tiny 2 week olds used them on their own- though ours stood on the pipe to access it.

I like the poultry cups because multiple hens can dip in, drink what they want -- without all that tapping and working to get the water. I hate to see any thirsty animal have to work at getting water-- I've done both and the cups are more peaceful.

You'd want to rig a way to cover the top of the bucket- can be as simple as a piece of plywood with 2x2's screwed in to match up with the bucket sides to hold it in place, easy to do, easy to remove to fill - so nobody jumps up and falls in, or jumps up and poops in the water- water stays clean, birds stay safe. Then you can freeze bottles and pop them in there in the AM for cooler water all day, refreeze the bottles overnight.... And still leave a shallow source of water they can dip their feet and wattles into to cool off, and as a backup. Always a backup!

Here's a closer picture of the cups. What can I say, I like cups! My favorite poultry discovery!