Step by step:
- Set up a brooder area in the coop where the broody and "her" babies will be safe from the other chickens. I made one that was 2 sided 1/2" hardware cloth and the other sides were the coop walls. Make a top for it from 2x4 welded wire fencing if you have it. Chickens will stand on hardware cloth but not wire with big openings.
- Move your broody in there with plenty of shavings or hay and some fake eggs . Real ones I guess if you don't have fake ones in your nests already. Some people use golf balls.
- Pick up the chicks and put them in your short term in the house brooding space. Make sure they are healthy and eating and drinking.
- Wait until 0 dark thirty. And I mean DARK. Like you can't see a thing dark.
- Take the chicks out to the brooder area and figure out which end of the hen is the back. You will need a flashlight for this but get a really dim one and don't point it at the hen, point it so just the edge of the light is on the side of the hen so you can figure out front from back.
- Take one chick and stuff it under the hen's wing FROM THE BACK. She might do some fussing around but hopefully will settle quickly. Then stick the next one in and wait. Repeat until you run out of chicks. You may be able to remove the fake eggs now but don't push it, you can get them the next day.
- Next morning go out before it gets very light so you can see when the hen wakes up and figures out she has "hatched" her eggs. If everything is good, she will mother them. If she is being aggressive toward them you likely have to pull them and quick make a Mama Heating Pad brooder cave (best to have this ahead of time and use it when they come home from the store). Toss her out on her ear, she isn't a good mom
Next time she goes broody, bust her ASAP.
That is what I did with my chicks last June. Except part 4. I didn't wait until it was pitch black and the hen was fussing at the first chick and pecking at my hand. I don't know if she would have been OK with it or not but it was my first time and I was nervous she would hurt the chicks so I backed off. Planned to try later that night but we got a wicked T-storm so I waited until it was pitch black the next night. Long story short she did a great job of raising those 7 chicks she "hatched" from 3 plastic eggs. They came from Meyer and hatched on Monday. They went under the hen Thursday night.
Brooder in the coop, top removed for picture taking. Door to the indoor run bottom left. The bar is the access perch for the community nest box. I put a wide board on top of the brooder lid so the 2 girls that use the community box could get in. Also note the plywood holder for the food and water. It keeps them out of the shavings and is big enough the chicks could stand on it until they were big enough to reach from the ground.
Chicks being shown how to be a chicken outside the brooder space. When they were 2 weeks old she moved them to a nest box that had an access perch 18" off the floor. At that age they can easily fly to 2'.
