Wow! One of the newly hatched chicks about 4-6 days old fell out of its nest and got in with the other young chicks. You would have thought that it was a wicked beast from hell the way the cornish hen grabbed it an gave it a fling. I guess I now know what happened to one of her chicks that disappeared. Talk about "mine or not mine" with the attitude of "protect with your life, or kill it" attitude.
I rescued the chick and moved momma and the other chick as well into a nest in with the other hens and their chicks and locked them in with food and water so that all the hens could get use to each other. After a day I removed the fence and the next day the newly introduced momma hen and her two young were on the floor hiding from the rest but being grudgingly accepted.
Each time I go into the coop I am treated to another episode of "Hens with Chicks". Ya know I read several books on raising chicks and talked to a lot of people on Backyard Chickens but these hens don't seem to be able to read. I have finally concluded that if you have a momma hen just let her do her thing. Let the chicks eat dirt, drink dirty water, get underfoot and get kicked across the room when momma is scratching for fresh dirt. What can I say they are all healthy and growing like weeds. I've even seen some of the older chicks under the Cornish hen. (what the Heck?)
The biggest difference from these chicks and the oldest hens that I have is that I haven't been able to handle them. So they are scared of my presence and run off churping. All the older chickens I have, I raised in a 3' x 4' cardboard box and handled them fairly regularly. Even now I can reach out an rub my hand under the roosters as they scoot off out of arms reach, but they don't run away.
Oh well, I guess there are some trade offs when you use broodies.
Wellp, that's the news from my side of the coop. Hope you'all are doing well in yours.