Hello! We have ordered some eggs for our broody hen to lay on, and she started laying on them yesterday! This is our first time to hopefully having chicks, so we are super excited! We have decided to let her of course lay on the eggs instead of using an incubator, and we want to let her raise the chicks as well. I would like opinions about my idea of how to let her raise the chicks with the rest of our flock.
We have 17 total hens (no roosters) that we let free range during the day. Right now the coop is like 12' x 12', and we have the ability to put up a door inside that splits the coop in half, but they can all still see each other (chainlink fence with chicken wire on bottom 3ft). Each half has its own outside door, food, water, and nesting boxes. My idea was this: Split the coop in half, keep some chickens in half with the mama hen and chicks so the chicks are raised with them also, and fence up a run outside of their door so that the chicks are safer from predators outside. The other half of the coop will have the other half of the flock which can still free range outside and have layer feed and we can still eat their eggs.
I hope this makes sense... would that be okay to have chicks with half of the flock? I was hoping that would make it easier for the chicks (and us) being with at least some of the flock, and also still let us have some eggs to eat. My worry is introducing the chicks to the other half of the flock...
TIA!!!! And if I missed something, please let me know!
We have 17 total hens (no roosters) that we let free range during the day. Right now the coop is like 12' x 12', and we have the ability to put up a door inside that splits the coop in half, but they can all still see each other (chainlink fence with chicken wire on bottom 3ft). Each half has its own outside door, food, water, and nesting boxes. My idea was this: Split the coop in half, keep some chickens in half with the mama hen and chicks so the chicks are raised with them also, and fence up a run outside of their door so that the chicks are safer from predators outside. The other half of the coop will have the other half of the flock which can still free range outside and have layer feed and we can still eat their eggs.
I hope this makes sense... would that be okay to have chicks with half of the flock? I was hoping that would make it easier for the chicks (and us) being with at least some of the flock, and also still let us have some eggs to eat. My worry is introducing the chicks to the other half of the flock...
TIA!!!! And if I missed something, please let me know!