Mother rejecting adolescence chicks

[Alice11]

Hi,
My hen had 6 chicks, they are now around 4 months old.
When i came back from a weekend away i found that she has 'rejected' two of the chicks. the chicks now are independent of her while the other 4 are still being mothered.
can anyone provide an answer for this..?

 

[justplainbatty]

Hi,
My hen had 6 chicks, they are now around 4 months old.
When i came back from a weekend away i found that she has 'rejected' two of the chicks. the chicks now are independent of her while the other 4 are still being mothered.
can anyone provide an answer for this..?

Welcome to our flock!

At four months, I would certainly hope they are independent! Maybe she just is closer with the last ones. It's hard to say why, she must feel that they still have something to learn.

 

[donrae]

Perfectly normal. In fact, that's pretty extended mothering for a chicken! But everyone needs to grow up and get weaned so to speak. It doesn't happen all at once necessarily but can go in stages.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The strange thing to me is that she mothered them this long. Mine usually wean the chicks somewhere between 3 and 9 weeks, not four months. But they are living animals and don’t come with guarantees. You can never tell what they will do. Sometimes they do a crisp clean weaning and sometimes it goes in stages.

 

[bawkbawkbawk]

I think eight weeks was when the switch flipped for my sweet bantam who was raising three adopted standard fowl. One day she was sacrificing food and roost space for them. The next it was OVER. Wish I'd had that presence of mind when my kids were pesky teenagers...

 

[lazy gardener]

We can learn a lot from a chicken!