Hello, I have a hen that beats to her own drum and is always off doing her own thing. Well I finally found her stash of eggs and behold she is brooding them. As usual she has laid them in a very bad place/not safe for baby chicks. She refuses to except the eggs if I put them in a safe spot and today they started hatching. If I leave them with her the outcome would not be good. I have another hen that has 5 babies ranging from 4 to 6 days old. Am I better off trying to introduce the new babies as they hatch with the other group or keep them in separate with a heat lamp and raise separate? Thanks Holly
Actually, now that the eggs are hatching, is there any way you can put something over her temporarily, even if it's just an old laundry basket, just to keep her from wandering off with the babies? As soon as they hatch you can move her and the babies to safe area without the threat of her abandoning the babies like she might eggs. The other hen might take the chicks, but she might also reject and kill them, so the best way to handle this would be to just move the hen and her chicks if at all possible. 6 days is a big age gap for trying to introduce more chicks.