One of my hens went broody, so I decided to put her to work. We have a little coop I use for broodys and chicks. It had been vacant for a year and needed to be refurbished, so I tweaked it's design in the process. The short story is that I made a hideous design flaw which ended up stranding the chicks in the yard, outside the roost. That has been corrected. I discovered my error when I spotted "mom" in the yard protecting the chicks in the there, but she had abandoned the un-hatched eggs in the roost. It was the middle of the night and fixing my error wasn't possible. So I retrieved the unhatched eggs and set up an emergency incubator. So now we have what appear to be few extra healthy chicks for the effort. I would rather not go through the whole brooder process with these guys. I want to put them with "mom." When you hatch a chick with a hen, obviously, they are instantly acclimated and the hen seems to know when to shelter them. I'd like to hear your valued opinions. Can I put the hatch-lings with "mom" with little consequence or did hatching them in the incubator turn them into "hot house flowers" that will die if I give them to "mom?" The highs for the next 2 days will be in the upper 80s, overnight low 60s.
Mom should be able to handle them. I've never tried it myself, but I know a few folks who have hatched in incubators and gave the chicks to broodies and were successful. You just have to make sure that the broody accepts them.
Quote:That's what I've heard to do as well. Then she'll wake up and assume they were her hatch and she'll take care of them. To be safe I'd try just one or two at a time to make sure she doesn't hurt them.
My last broody left 1 egg in the nest, so I hatched it in the incubator. I gave it back to her, by slipping it under her while her back was turned and she never noticed she had a new baby. The only problem I had was this chick was three days younger than her others, and had a little trouble keeping up with its brothers. Mom was good and waited on it, but it took a few days for the baby to be as active as the older chicks. Your best bet is to give them to her a night, so they all wakeup togethers, and she will probably never notice. Just watch them, because if they are a few days younger than the others, they might not keep up.
Thanks for the excellent and useful advice. I've incubated before. I've let broody do her thing. I never had both techniques pop up at once before. "Mama" doesn't appear to know how to count and the late comer didn't imprint on me. "Mama" immediately went into new chick orientation mode. She took a few pecks at the food and took a few sips of water to show the chick how things worked. Then after a little bit, Baby came up to "Mama's" leg and and she sat down and buried the chick under her wing. When I did my evening check, no babies in view. Yippie. So all's well. Thanks again.
