Need help! Have new baby chicks!

[danahudnall]

Hello all,
I'm new here and I have situation that I don't know what to do about. I haven't raised chickens since I was a teen in the FFA. I retired from the Navy now and here I am 35 years later with a new chicken coops hens and a rooster. I have had them for about six weeks. It didn't take long before one of the hens started sitting on eggs (I wasn't expecting that so fast). So the check are starting to hatch noe (3 so far but there's over 20 eggs still there).

The problem is that I built the roost up off the ground with eight nesting spots for the hens. So she sat on the eggs in one of those. This thing is about four feet off the ground and I can just barely get the chick food and water in that little spot. I built an additional pen (about 3 foot by 2 foot) for the chicks but somebody said I shouldn't move her. At what point can I move her and her chicks into that separate pen (or should I ever do that)? There's eventually going to be 15-20 chicks in there and they aren't all gonna fit in that small space they're in now. And I don't want them to fall and get hurt or die. I'm stuck here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Grandma Taylor]

We had the same type issue last year, we tried putting wire over the bottom of the entry to the nest box so the chicks wouldn’t fall out but that only lasted about a day, chicks can move around a lot! We did move them to a new coop with plenty of room. We set up a nest of hay 1st, then we moved the hatched chicks over, wear gloves because Mom will peck you! Then we moved Mom and remaining unpatched eggs.

 

[danahudnall]

So - I can move her over with the unhatched eggs?

 

[danahudnall]

Thank you - By the way!

 

[Grandma Taylor]

So - I can move her over with the unhatched eggs?

We moved ours because like you we were concerned for the already hatched chicks, Mom was very upset with us but she sat on the remaining eggs that we moved with her and continued to hatch them out. Help this helped!

 

[danahudnall]

Oh - OK. Thank you very much. I think I can do that. Did you move them as soon as they started hatching?

 

[Grandma Taylor]

Oh - OK. Thank you very much. I think I can do that. Did you move them as soon as they started hatching?

We tried not to move them the 1st day they started hatching but the chicks were falling out of the nest box to an area that was to far for them to get back into the nest with Mom so day two we moved chicks, Mom and remaining eggs over to the other coop. Our brooding hens are now in areas where they can sit on their nest and the chicks can safely hatch without having to be moved. We live and learn!

 

[danahudnall]

Awesome! Thank you so very much.

 

[Grandma Taylor]

Awesome! Thank you so very much.

Not a problem! Hope all goes well!