Is it cruel?

[awsomblossom]

I have a brooding hen on 9 eggs (first time for the both of us). I would like the chicks to be friendly like some of my other feathered friends but everything I read says to use an incubator in order to hand raise them and hence increase the liklihood of them being friendly. Is it cruel to remove the chicks from her shortly after hatching and raise them myself indoors?? I don't want to burst her bubble after she did all the hard work sitting day and night!

 

[Mahonri]

Well I dunno, I'll take a mother hen raising a chick for me any day. Brooding is a full time job.

 

[jvls1942]

it is not cruel.

leave her with a couple and she won't even notice a few missing..

take all of them and she will get over it in a few minutes..

 

[awsomblossom]

Yes, I agree entirely...I have three chicks in my living room right now! Lots of chirping to go along with my 4 dogs, 6 cats and 5 rats (that's just the indoor animals). Ugh...

 

[bockbock2008]

I have a similar situation. I have 2 broodies and the eggs are hatching now. I don't have anywhere to put moms and babies together and seperated from the rest of the flock. I already have a brooder going for eggs that I am hatching in the incubator so I have been taking them away from her after they are dried and putting them in the brooder. I don't know if this is the best thing to do but thats how I am doing it.

 

[awsomblossom]

Thanks Jvls1942! My mind is at ease knowing that she has (or will have rather) little to no real strong attachment to her little ones and that I'm not going to scar her for life.

 

[silkiechicken]

If you take them in the first few days and just leave one... she'll likely not even notice you took the other 11! If she has only one, and you take it from her though, boy, some girls go crazy! I know mine did when I stole her only baby for a photoshoot inside... and she managed to follow the baby screams around the house to the closest window to where I was taking pics of the chick. Silly hen though is a very dedicated and awesome mother!

But, even if you did take all the chicks, she'll forget in a few days.

 

[cmom]

I agree with the other posts. Their memory isn't too good.

 

[speckledhen]

I did that once when the babies were a week old. Glenda looked for her babies for over a week, on and off. She kept going back to the broody pen and searching every corner. It was pitiful! I now have two broodies on five chicks each and I will keep just one chick each and sell the rest. And, laugh though you may, I actually told Glenda that next time, she could keep some of her babies, LOL.

Though she looked feverishly for them for about a week, for the next couple of months, she still occasionally went to look into the vacant broody pen for her babies.

 

[SunAngel]

I normally have to take the chicks away from my broodies when they hatch and the moms get over it within a few minutes. I don't have an area to separate mom and babies, so a lot of fights happen due to mom being over protective. I just raise the chicks inside and they turn out really friendly.