Letting New Mom Raise Chicks with Flock or Not?

[TreehuggerMo]

We are soooo excited...and worried. Our little sizzle was so broody that we got her eggs and they hatched yesterday!!! She is now mothering 3 chicks and we are wondering if we should let her stay with the other chickens with her family or separate them. So far everyone is doing great. Can anyone give advice or experience on this? P.S. Don't know if it matters but the babies are standard size chickens while mom is a small girl.

 

[AlienChick]

As long as the other chickens are not bothering mom or chicks, she's fine to stay with the flock.
Make sure you provide easy access for the chicks -chick starter and water that they can't drown in.

 

[Ridgerunner]

People do this all sorts of different ways for their own reasons. Bad things can happen if you separate them. Bad things can happen if you don’t. There is no one right way where every other way is wrong. They are living animals, you can’t get absolute answers.

I choose to do it the way small farmers have been doing it for thousands of years. I let the broody hatch and raise them with the flock. I’ve never lost a chick to another adult flock member doing it this way, but some people have. I prefer to let Mama handle integration issues so I don’t have to worry about them.

I think one very important factor is that my chickens have a lot of room. If room is tight, then I think that makes it harder on the broody. But if space is tight, that makes integration later more risky too.

Good luck!

 

[TreehuggerMo]

Thank you all so much ... our chickens have lots of room (we spoil them) so I guess that works in our favor. Elf (mom) seems to be happy and content so I will watch them for now . I am a firm believer in letting nature do it's thing if I can. I will post photos as soon as I can...right now Elf was not showing off the chicks so we are giving her a few days.

Thanks again. I love this site and all the friends willing to help when I have questions. You are great!!

 

[YJAcres]

Our chickens made it very clear from the first time they saw the new chicks that they were out for blood, so we had to separate them. I don't think it helped that the mama was at the bottom of the pecking order!

 

[phalenbeck]

I currently have 2 moms with 10 hatched last week with the big flock right now. This has worked well ALMOST all the time. On one occasion a couple big girls went after the new hatches. I now pen the almost hatches within the pen, and release them into the general population in a few days. I think this gives stronger chicks. None of this foolish sitting in a box at 90 for a week when they could be out running around eating bugs like chickens should.