Mama hates siblings bought for lone hatchling

[LizaBlue]

Only one egg hatched alive, so I had the "brilliant" idea I would buy it some siblings. I found some about the same size/age locally, and got too eager about introducing them. I left my husband with the family while I went to dentist, and apparently Mama thinks the interlopers are evil heathen beasties. He took her out of the hutch, and I came home to find her building a nest on the coop floor and her baby chasing some other hen. I have no idea how it got out, except my husband forgets to check Ms. Broody's clingy little feet - that's how we lost 2 eggs early on. Anyway, I put her back in the hutch, and tucked the babies under her, which worked for a while...then her baby tattled. I put a box in there with a small hole, a layer of bedding, and shoved it under the ledge, so the babies could escape and keep warm, but poor little silkie wouldn't stay in and insisted on crawling up Mama's butt. Last night, when she settled to go to sleep, she was pretty calm about us tucking all the babies under her, but if the stuck their head out - whammo! This morning, hubbie went up there to feed them some egg, and she wouldn't let the other babies eat. He took her out of the hutch, but the babies still wouldn't come out of their box. Now she's prancing around the hutch all crazy and her baby is crying its head off.

I wish I had some blinders for her, I'd try that to see if it helped. Any ideas?

 

[RedPyleLady]

sometimes things just wont work out the way one hopes. it was a good idea becuase somtimes introducing babies to a hen with a newley hatched one works (i would assume) like eggs. I would say let her raise her own baby and then raise the new ones yourself until they are a little bigger. The baby chick will be just fine alone and itll have its mommy to keep it company and if you want it to have some socialization with some of its own age, a few minutes of un-mommy supervised playtime wouldnt hurt

 

[Syharrison]

put the chicks in a seperate brooder and keep them seperate, i have one chick now im trying to intergrate with two older ones and this poor fella just gets attacked so i have to build something bigger now, sometimes they just clash

 

[LizaBlue]

Well, I spent most of the day working in the coop so I could supervise. I let Mama in the hutch, and just put a few babies under her, and she was just fine...until they stuck their heads out half an hour later. So today, she got put out again, and tonight she wouldn't behave either so she's sleeping under the hutch

When the flock got their free range time, I put her on the golf cart with me and drove her to the other side of the acreage where they were and put her out with them. She hung out just fine, until she saw me walking back to the cart, then she wanted a ride back to her baby! Durn, these Australorps are smart. It was so nice and sunny out, I fixed a big tub with shavings and tried to get her to nest outside with her baby a while to get some sun, but as soon as she knew he was near, she went about being a chicken and ignored him. I set baby on the ground and it was worse: he thinks any hen/rooster/turkey will act like mom and let him cuddle, while mom thinks he will naturally follow her and stay close, so that experiment lasted less than 2 minutes. However, with sunlight, fresh air, and no mean-mama in the hutch, the babies played like crazy. So now I just have to decide if it's crueler to let Mama keep having visits with her baby, or to continue to force the seperation.

 

[tweetysvoice]

awww.. poor baby! What does mama do if you remove all the chicks? Does she get upset if her baby is not there at all? I might be more apt to just remove all of the chicks and raise them all together away from her, or in the pen separated so she can see but not touch..

 

[tuesdays chicks]

I had a problem last year with broody hen and hatching eggs, 2 black chicks hatched in incubator all others mixed some in incubator some under her she accepted but since she didn't hatch any black she wanted to kill them when they came out from under her, I had to remove them completely, I gave them away, sad but true, I would take all the chicks and separate them from momma, at least you know if mommas chick manages to get out and find her she wont kill it.

 

[LizaBlue]

All chicks are living happily together in the hutch, with the one hatchling that had some Mama time being the boldest, bravest, and fastest learner/ first to try new things. Mama keeps vigil under the hutch, frequently complaining, esp. if the chicks get upset. Her baby wanted to see her this morning, but when I held him out for her, she didn't recognize it and pecked at it, so I guess no more visiting rights. Rain worked in my favor on her forced outings: the flock went to the other side of the "creek" that flows through their free range area when it rains too much and she forgot she could swim across it so she stayed with the others. Hoping she'll eventually get over this...