Natural breeding thread

Did you try or do you want to hatch with a broody?

  • I have experience with hatching with a broody

    Votes: 68 58.6%
  • I haven’t, but I might or have plans to do so

    Votes: 29 25.0%
  • I have had chicks with broodies multiple times and love to help others

    Votes: 28 24.1%
  • I have experience with hatching with an incubators

    Votes: 46 39.7%
  • I only bought chicks or chickens so far

    Votes: 13 11.2%

  • Total voters
    116
Pics
This is good to read. By this foraging she has got their GITs off to a great start.

If you want to try another experiment, see if she still prioritizes forage if you offer some real food, instead of whatever 'moist feed' you have been giving them so far. It need not be meat, fish, or dairy, but I would expect any of them to be preferred.
Yes, I've been experimenting with that! I thought the layer feed might not be enough of the right things for chicks, and our feed store only carried the medicated chick feed, which I didn't want, so I've been trying to offer a variety of other human foods to complement the mash. I've offered boiled lentils, scrambled eggs, grated cheese, grated apple, canned salmon, crumbled biscuits, and any other "plain" food that seems potentially palatable. Each of these has been preferred at some point, and disdained at another time. I suppose she is carefully monitoring their diet and knows what they need.

When she wants something particular she cannot find and I haven't offered, she gets very insistent--flapping and pecking at my pants and giving me a hard stare. I try to remember what she's had recently and offer what I think she might be missing. If I guess right, she makes vigorous "hungry grunts" as she eats (more than the chucks that she uses to guide the chicks). If I guess wrong, she nibbles a bit and then goes back to foraging.
 
Just wanted to share an update on my Polish's mothering journey:

She and the babies are slowly increasing their perimeter outside of the coop/run. She's been so attentive and protective and just a great mother all around.

Screenshot 2025-04-29 at 7.05.14 PM.png
 
Just wanted to share an update on my Polish's mothering journey:

She and the babies are slowly increasing their perimeter outside of the coop/run. She's been so attentive and protective and just a great mother all around.

View attachment 4110587

She sounds like an amazing mother! Very glad everything’s going so well.

They have an excellent teacher, from who they are going to learn everything there is to know about ranging and foraging, and hopefully pass that knowledge on in the future
 
I am doing this with my bantam silkie, she is sitting on 3 eggs since 4/19 and I think that means we are very close to hatch date! I have her in the same coop as everyone else for now. Should I move her into an enclosed area outside with a small cat carrier full of straw and open door to the grass? She would be safe in there or just leave her in the coop nesting box?
 
I am doing this with my bantam silkie, she is sitting on 3 eggs since 4/19 and I think that means we are very close to hatch date! I have her in the same coop as everyone else for now. Should I move her into an enclosed area outside with a small cat carrier full of straw and open door to the grass? She would be safe in there or just leave her in the coop nesting box?
Everything is okay now isn’t it?
If so I would leave her in her favourite nestbox. At least untill the chicks hatched. Only if you see aggressive behaviour towards the chicks and the mother doesn’t defend the chicks properly it’s time to intervene.

Is the nestbox near the floor? If not, you may need to add a broad plank for the chicks after they hatched, to be able to fet back up.
 
Sadly we just found a dead chick halfway hatched underneath her. Not sure what exactly happened.
same happened here a week ago. It's just one of those sad things, like stillbirths for people, and sometimes we never know what went wrong. Hopefully the other two will make it and she will be fulfilled.
 

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