I'll be honest, I never thought they would hatch!

[AZDC]

Okay, so here's the story. We have some beautiful Polish chickens, one rooster and three hens. Blue rooster, and hen, two white hens. One or more has been laying, and we have incubated the eggs. In auto turner, just my des wife turning the gags by hand religiously the appropriate amount of times a day until our first hatch! Very exciting moment for us both!

She is moments old and we are now wondering what other than to the brooder, where does she go in our flock of these beautiful birds? We have no idea which layed the egg that provided this chick, although the rooster certainly has his favorite hen.

We're certain someone here can help, thanks in advance folks! DC

 

[AZDC]

To be more clear, I mean, does she have a place going back into the pen with the current birds? Do we separate the 'favorite' hen and chick from the others and hope she is the mother? Is that even possible without any of the hens being broody?

 

[appps]

No she has no place and you are now going to have to hand rear her/him. Even were your hen broody (mother or not doesn't matter) it would still not be a sure thing it would accept it and it would need to be introduced sneakily under the hen within a day or two of hatching so she thought she hatched it.

If you put it in now without a broody hen to protect it they will kill it.

You have to let it grow big enough to be able to go without a heat lamp and then introduce it in a seperated area but next to them till it is similar size to the existing birds and only then can you finally put them all together and cross fingers they all get on.

For now though go and do a search here for threads on brooding chicks so you can keep it alive without a broody hen.

 

[AZDC]

Sorry for the delayed response, we've had some connection issues here for a few weeks now.

Chicks are doing great, thank you for the reply. We've raised chicks before, just never quite like this. They're coming along fine and starting to feather nicely.

 

[AZDC]

Here are a couple of pictures in case anyone is interested.

This is the father:

Here are some of his girls:

Here are the hatchlings about two weeks ago:

And this is them today:

 

[chickenboy190]

 

[cmfarm]

What cuties! The parents are very pretty too!