Hen abandoned eggs day 19

[SimplyLivinthatFarmLife]

I'd love to hear the suggestions of others with more experience.

 

[Gypsi]

I'd love to hear the suggestions of others with more experience.

So would I. I wasn't planning on brooding chicks in the house, but I suspect I will have to for a couple of weeks. In the meantime she's in the brooding coop, also known as the rooster coop, all by herself, and she has a perch, cat carrier, and food and water and a little run, and when I think the chicks are big enough, she will get to mother them. She mothered the 2 year olds and she didn't sit those eggs, I bought and hatched them and put her and an older australorp in charge of them in the big coop and run.

 

[aart]

The broody isn't broody any more. How do I slip chicks under her when she is on a perch 3 ft up? .....

You may not be able to, unless she gets back on the nest.
Not all broodies go the distance, moving them can 'break the broody'.
I have only let a couple hatch, but I moved them with fake eggs to where I wanted them to set and let them settle back in for a day or two before giving fertile eggs.
Did you check that nest(and her) that she refused to get back onto for lice/mites?
Might remove the roost in her new space.
Best of cLuck.

 

[Gypsi]

I'm just going to brood them in the house, I don't trust her not to kill the chicks. I don't think there are lice or mites, she sat for a couple of days on any egg she could find before I got her the fertile ones. She is a fair mother to larger chicks, and I will leave her in the separate pen for now I think. It's safer when I am ready to take them outdoors.

 

[Gypsi]

put her back in the main coop this morning, found her in the nest box on eggs tonight. hmmm. Only 3 chicks, a couple of the other eggs weren't fertile, and a couple had failed a week or 2 ago, apparently. I checked before putting on the compost pile, as today was time for the last eggs.

 

[aart]

You gonna try to put the chicks under her?

 

[Gypsi]

I tried last night to put chicks under her.she left nest and went by food dish. it was warm enough, put food and water in and locked coop to keep other birds out, gave other hens a cat carrier nest. She won't tend chicks. She didn't harm them but wouldn't nest with them. Brought them in, back in incubator til I set brooder up. One day old looked the coldest but pretty much ok.

 

[Gypsi]

You gonna try to put the chicks under her?

chicks are doing just fine in the house. Now she's sitting in empty nest box, not on eggs. She is a bit over 4