- May 5, 2014
- 7
- 0
- 7
My bantam wyandotte recently began sitting and hatched 4 healthy chicks, none of her own, they came from the bardrock eggs laid in her nest. two more hatched today and when I went out, one was out of the brooder box as if it had been carried out, and then it had been killed. Another appeared weak and small and was wobbly and I feared the same would happen to it, so I removed that chick and brought it inside and placed it into a cardboard box with a heating pad, her eggshell and some baby chick feed and water in a waterer on a sloped end away from the heating pad, and where it cannot spill...spill proof etc...wrapped the chick in a towel on top of the heating pad. it appears to be pecking at the food, but so far has not gone for the water....am I doing this right? I really want this one to live. The mother hen is caring for the first four chicks hatched and doing very well. The other hens are leaving them alone and they are cozy in their own pen.
Jennifer/Author Kateland Black
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and Welcome To BYC! Congratulations on your new chicks, sorry about the one that is not doing well. If she hatched the others a few days ago, she may not care or even recognize the ones that are hatching late now, and will not pay attention to them as she should. The chick is totally hatched it is not still attached to its egg shell (not sure why you took the eggshell in?) That it is pecking at food is good, you will want to dip its beak in the water a few times until it gets the idea. You probably want to try and make a brooder set up for it if it is not strong enough to keep up with the older chicks, people usually use a heat light (you can use a regular light bulb if you can get the temperature high enough), just hatched chicks need a spot about 95* in the warm spot, the brooder should have cooler spots also. Here is a nice article on raising chicks the first few weeks. 
