Help!! One of my broody's eggs hatched--what do I do?

[miss_thenorth]

Okay, the broody (Pebbles) is in a dog-type crate, in a cardboard box. When I came home from picking up my goats, I went inot the barn to set them up and heard peeping. I quickly put a floor in the bottom of the crate with some straw, and put out fresh water and chick starter. Now what. I am slightly unprepared, b/c I thought they still had a few days to go. Is this sufficient, and how long do I keep them like this? After all the eggs hatch, do I keep mom isolated with the chicks? I have other older chickens and a rooster allowed to roam in the barn.

What do I do????? This is my first time ever with a broody

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

It depends on how many chicks she ends up with and how good of a mom she is as to whether you should let her keep them all or not. The other birds shouldn't pose too much of a problem - mama hen will be a fierce protecter. But if she is a first-time mom she might have a hard time keeping up with more than 4-5 chicks. She probably won't get up for another 24-36 hours but she *might*...again, every hen has a different temperment.

Just try to keep an eye on her when you let them out for the first time and see how good she does with them and go from there.... and CONGRATS on the new babes

 

[GwenFarms]

The momma will take care of those chicks. I like to keep mine put up a couple of weeks though, mostly due to the barn cat trying to steal the babies and to make it less stressful for the momma watching. She will manage them better than you ever could in a brooder. Hens will hold off most predators. One of my game hens rolled one of our dogs back and forth across the yard last month for looking wrong at her babies and even ran the barn cat circles. The cat gives that chicken fearful looks to this day.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Thanks!! She is OEG, and from what I was told, she has brooded before--she's new to me bya few months. And she's wild and mean--I don't even go near her without gloves on. So I keep her in there until she decides not to sit anymore, and then allow her to leave the crate? I am so unprepared for this--we have been busy with tiling, fencing and getting the garden started, not to mention, I had her figured out to be hatching around the 25th

oh well, it will only be my first time this once--Next time I will know better.

Thanks!

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

If she has brooded before and you already see how mean she is, I think it would probably be OK to go ahead and open her crate. She might leave an egg or 2 (or however many) that hasn't hatched so I would try to have an incubator going so when she gets up you can finish off any remaining eggs. If you don't have an incubator then there's really not much you can do - her survival instinct will tell her not to sacrifice her living chicks for the ones that didn't hatch.

And yes, OEG make fantastic mothers.....

 

[Wildsky]

I also have a broody girl who (at last check this morning) had two babies..... one hatched yesterday and one must have been early morning or so - she still has two eggs and is still sitting tight!

I'm going to try give her more space now - so far I've enclosed her, and she's had enough space to get out the box (a storage tub) and poop, she has water and food and enough space to move...
But with babies I want to increase the space she has, and if the rain ever stops I'm going to cut a hole through to the shed next to the coop - and she can have the whole shed to walk her babies around.... she'll still see and hear all the other noisy chickens, but for a while won't have to worry about them picking on her babies....

 

[GwenFarms]

I would just let her go. Just open the crate and when she is ready she'll come out and start showing them the world. There is nothing sweeter than watching a momma hen and her babies. I love it when they carry them under their wings and you can see a couple peeking out.