Mom with Chicks

[bob869007]

I let mine do their thing. After a day or two after hatching the mama hen usually carries the into the yard.

I let nature do it's thing. I separate my hens until they hatch. After that I put the nest box in the main coop. Momma will keep the other hens away. I noticed they all seem to take their babies outside around day 3. They stay close to the back side of the garage for a few more days and then momma leads them to where the food is. Some of mine are confined and other are free. I never had any issues this way albeit this is our first hatching season. $ hens hatched so far with 3 more sitting on eggs. These Standard Old English are excellent brooders/mommas

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I think you can see the consensus here is to let the broodies do what they need to do and dispense with the incarceration. Usually a flock fears a broody hen and will avoid incurring her rath.

When you say, "one small coop", how large is it and how many adult chickens are residing in it? Do they have a protected run? Or does the flock free range solely? How large is the run? Space will play a very important role in this, especially when the broodies wean their chicks around six weeks and they will be expected to fend for themselves. That's when they may require some safe space.

As I've often said in the past, brooding hens will do ALL of their babies' heavy fighting for them.

The greatest danger in my experience is that your brooding hen will loose a 'hay maker' at a hen who takes liberties with the brooding hens' babies and one of the peeps will end up with collateral damage. Been there, saw that. The tighter the quarters the more likely it is that a peep will be killed by an errant blow.

 

[MrDeMaistre]

Usually it goes fine, particularly very early on when the chicks are no threat to anybody's place in the pecking order. Often several hens will go broody together and they sort of share responsibility for the well-being and protection of the chicks. I see this particularly with banties. When the chicks hit the pullet stage, they get knocked around a bit as the pecking order gets reestablished. That sort of strife bothers us more than it bothers the birds, I suspect.

I've only had chicks actually killed by the mother herself, if it's sickly or deformed. It's an ugly business, but it's a chicken thing that does happen.