Currently I have two chicks almost ready to go outside, I'm getting 6 more on Monday, and I have 2 broody hens on 6 eggs apiece. The problem is I only have 2 coops, my main one and my extra, I use the extra as a growout but I have the Brodies going out there as soon as the chicks hatch, so that'd be 2 pullets, 6 growouts, two Moma hens and all the babies they hatch in one coop. What do I do?
I got caught in a similar situation. We took hardware cloth and stapled it to our poop boards ( hope you have those ), that created a extra room for very small chicks and allowed everyone to get used to each other.
Is there anyway to seperate the coop area? And how close are the broody hens to hatching their chicks? Is it possible they could accept the 6 new ones your getting? And raise them up for you?
Burd I have some questions for you. Did you mean "brodies" or "broodies"? Also, your second "grow out" coop, I assume that's for the transitional sized birds that are not quite adults? Lastly, you have 2 coops. Your main coop, how big is it? My first thought would be to make some kind of little wall or separator inside the larger coop. This is fancy but the idea is the same: a wall of chicken wire to separate younger chicks from the adults. Am I following you correctly?
Unless your two broodies have raised chicks together in the past, I would advise that you separate them. They have been known to kill chicks that are not theirs.
agree with CTKen also if their chicks got mixed up, they would have fights trying to get theirs back & sometimes chicks get maimed or killed doing so. If you have to, you'll have to move them to your bathroom or somewhere in the house. It's not a life sentence. Baby chicks grow fast. That's what others do.
This is there first time going Brody, when I got them I hoped they'd be a pair of momas, there both black Cochin bantams, hoesephina and joesephina.
Just get some hard ware cloth and make a corner in your biggest coop for the chicks they will get to know everyone and be same from attack my main suggestion would be build another small brooder coop
