Jm1420
Hatching
I'm new to this forum and this is my first post. My granddaughter is the chicken enthusiast but she turned 18, moved out and I'm left with the chickens.
They are pretty low maintenance. I had 4. Involved cleaning the coop and feeding. They free range all day with the door open and come home at night to roost inside their coop. No problems.
A neighborhood kid got chickens for a school project. 2 of them roosters. They began gravitating over here to my hens. Prior to this, I had one very broody hen that I had to keep removing from the nest boxes.
Flash ahead, to my Mother becoming ill and I had to fly across country. I was gone for 3 weeks and on my return my daughter told me "Kooka" had been missing since the day I left. After checking around with neighbor's, we assumed a predator got her. A few days after I got home, I heard a ruckus in the bushes and there she was with 15 baby chicks. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I've only bought chicks at the farm store, raised them in a brooder and never more than 4. It was chaos as we gathered all the newly hatched chicks (still wobbly and trembling) and got them all into the run (my very interested cats were watching all this from the patio).
So! Now I've got 15 chicks with 4 grown hens. Momma is doing a great job. They all stay with her inside the run. I let the other 3 out in the morning to free range and let them back in at dusk to return. So far, everyone is tolerant of each other. Everyone goes into the coop at dusk on their own, Momma and babies on the floor, other hens on the roosts.
I cannot and don't want to keep all these chicks. When can I place them into homes? Because I've bought all my chicks at the farm store with no Mom involved, I figured I could just place them after a week or two. Now that I'm reading some of the forum, I'm realizing it's different when there is a Mom involved. She is a good Mom, very attentive. Kind of funny.... All those weeks of trying to break her broodiness... I guess she showed me! I'm not sure how one Mom can lay and hatch 15 chicks in the span of 3 weeks. Anyway, I'm open to all advice and suggestions on what I should do from here. I'm planning to keep maybe 2 or 3 of them but the rest need to find new homes.
Thank you!
Jenn
They are pretty low maintenance. I had 4. Involved cleaning the coop and feeding. They free range all day with the door open and come home at night to roost inside their coop. No problems.
A neighborhood kid got chickens for a school project. 2 of them roosters. They began gravitating over here to my hens. Prior to this, I had one very broody hen that I had to keep removing from the nest boxes.
Flash ahead, to my Mother becoming ill and I had to fly across country. I was gone for 3 weeks and on my return my daughter told me "Kooka" had been missing since the day I left. After checking around with neighbor's, we assumed a predator got her. A few days after I got home, I heard a ruckus in the bushes and there she was with 15 baby chicks. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I've only bought chicks at the farm store, raised them in a brooder and never more than 4. It was chaos as we gathered all the newly hatched chicks (still wobbly and trembling) and got them all into the run (my very interested cats were watching all this from the patio).
So! Now I've got 15 chicks with 4 grown hens. Momma is doing a great job. They all stay with her inside the run. I let the other 3 out in the morning to free range and let them back in at dusk to return. So far, everyone is tolerant of each other. Everyone goes into the coop at dusk on their own, Momma and babies on the floor, other hens on the roosts.
I cannot and don't want to keep all these chicks. When can I place them into homes? Because I've bought all my chicks at the farm store with no Mom involved, I figured I could just place them after a week or two. Now that I'm reading some of the forum, I'm realizing it's different when there is a Mom involved. She is a good Mom, very attentive. Kind of funny.... All those weeks of trying to break her broodiness... I guess she showed me! I'm not sure how one Mom can lay and hatch 15 chicks in the span of 3 weeks. Anyway, I'm open to all advice and suggestions on what I should do from here. I'm planning to keep maybe 2 or 3 of them but the rest need to find new homes.
Thank you!
Jenn