Hi my broody buff orphington is sitting on eggs. I've been candling them through the process. This is my 2nd time doing this. There are some eggs that are probably 4 days apart, I have 6 total all seem to be fertilized and growing (seem, I'm new to this!).
My question should I do anything after the first chick hatches while she is laying on the other eggs? Do I remove the chick and care for it or leave it with her? I just ask because I had an issue before where the chick got smashed but either the mom or another hen trying to get in the nest box.
She is in a dog travel carrier brooding them. I plan on taking the dog traveler out of the coop after she hatches one and putting the entire thing in a kiddie pool with shavings in my garage. I just think the less interruptions from the flock would be best and I know taking her out of carrier could make her not sit on the rest of the eggs.
Just looking for advice. I'm super excited but want the chicks and mom to be safe and everything to go smooth.
Thank you in advance!
Sounds like she's isolated from other hens but within view of them right now. That's the optimal situation if you plan to keep the hen and chicks within the current flock (less integration issues later). If you can just make or keep her in an area where she has access to food and water for her and chicks and is within sight of the others, I'd leave her there. As the chicks start hatching, they will stay with her for up to 3 days before venturing off the nest to go get food and water. You may want to have your incubator on standby for the last few eggs since they're 4 days apart from the first ones. It's possible to put incubator chick(s) back under broody mom at night time about a day after hatching and mom will accept them, some broodies are fine with this, others are not. Depends on the broody's hormones, and if she's still in the mood to accept chicks, and how long after the last chick hatched under her that you're trying to sneak another under her. The less time that elapses, the better.
I have a broody that doesn't peck me and is fine with me messing about under her while she's on the nest, so I put the last (incubator hatched) chick under her right before bed and it worked great, but each broody is different. My last egg hatched about 4 days from the first one. I thought she'd gotten off the nest, so I put fake eggs in just in case I was wrong and put the real eggs in the incubator. The last few eggs spent about 12 hrs in the incubator and one hatched the next morning (only one was fertile). Also, I didn't candle the eggs at all throughout the hatch, and pretty much left her alone. They can stop being broody if you mess with the eggs too much.
My advice to you would be just leave her alone to hatch out her chicks, and keep other chickens out of her area. Once they're hatched, let them be seen by other chickens for a while before opening up the broody enclosure to the rest of the flock. If she's a good broody mom, she'll defend her chicks from other chickens and that will help a lot. If she doesn't defend her chicks and they die, she's not a good broody mom. It's good to know these things so you can use a different broody next time. Accidents do happen, I'd give her another chance to protect her chicks from the flock and see how she does. You can observe to try and prevent accidents.
I had a broody recently, and gave her and her chicks about two weeks of being looked at by the rest of the flock after hatching before I opened up the broody area back to the rest of the flock. My broody hen took on all the flock members and the flock leader and won when they got too close to her chicks. That is the behavior of a good broody hen.
Not saying this is the best setup (optimally I'd have framed it out, made it taller, and put a door and stuff, with some hardware cloth along the bottom 6" to contain chicks when they're small), but this worked pretty good in my predator secure open-air covered run (I don't have an actual coop since it's not needed where I live). The broody hen is in the red 5-gallon bucket nest box, and successfully hatched 3 chicks there, and sleeps there currently with her chicks (~3 wks after hatch). I used chicken wire to make an enclosure for her that had food, water, and kept other hens out. I zip tied the chicken wire to the outer coop hardware cloth, the vertical pallets, and a random fencepost I had on hand, then folded over the chicken wire and put some firewood on it at the end of the enclosure. Used some carabiners also to secure to the outer run wall. Put a few landscaping stakes to keep the bottom edge of the chicken wire down in the areas the other chickens were scratching at it too much. Me or kids have to crawl in there to check chicks, eggs, and change food/water, which is a pain, but it's working for now.
I know folks have used cardboard in the past to build an enclosure to separate in addition to chicken wire when hens brood inside a coop, so that's an option.
I really wouldn't move her to the garage if you can avoid it.
I'm a newbie to broody chick hatching. I've had chickens for 6 years.
