Need some help and suggestions

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nailman1

nailman1

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We're new to raising chickens without even thinking about. Here's our story. Saturday, Memorial Day weekend, and we found a chicken in our front yard. No idea where she came from, but we thought she'd find her way home. Didn't see again till Monday and since then, she's adopted us. She's a Hamburg we think and just hangs around our yard free ranging, roosts in our bushes, eats from our hands (bread) and we've bought a small feeder, chicken feed and a water jug. I've been looking at coop plans as now we plan on getting some more hens, along with our newly adopted one.

We did not see her for about 4 days and thought she might have left us or worse. Today she shows up, clucking like mad, ate a good deal of bread and chicken feed and then wandered off. I followed her to our rhododendrons and lo and behold, she had a nest with at least 6 eggs. Quite a surprise

Question, coop should be built in a couple of weeks,, but in the meantime, what do we do about our "egg-producer"? Do a make a quick nesting box for her, or let her continue to lay where she has made a nest?

Again, we didn't plan on be BYC people, but looks like we are now and are pretty excited about it. Just worried about our first one and what to do next.

Thanks for replies

Nailman1
 
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Greetings from Kansas, nailman1, and
welcome-byc.gif
! Great to have you aboard. Congratulations on your adoption and your eggs. She will likely keep laying in the same place but you could provide her with a nest box and see shat happens. Once you have her relocated in a coop with a nest box you might want to leave her in the coop/run so she gets used to laying where she's supposed to. Also, I'd hate to see you lose her to a predator after all of this - might want to supervise her free ranging. Good luck to you and have fun!
 
welcome-byc.gif
If you fix up a nest for her she may abandon the eggs. Maybe if you put something she could nest in near your house (where you could watch for predators) she might decide on her own to move there - especially if you put out water for her. Chickens can move eggs and do, they tuck them under their chin or tightly under their wings. If she wants to move on her own, then it wouldn't stress her. If not, she seems to be doing okay on her own.

Even if the eggs don't hatch (she needed a rooster for fertile eggs) she'll probably stay with you and there is always next time when you have a coop and run.
 
Congrats!!!!! I know nothing about whether you should move her or not. Interesting start to the chicken world, I am following, sounds like this is going to be interesting :)
 
Thanks for the advice and help. We're worried about predators too, but she won't even let us get near her "eggs". Not many predators around us any more, but don't want to take the chance. What woudl happen if I just shooed her off her nest and take the eggs she has laid there? Would that be too stressfull?
 
Redsox, thatnks for your reply. Love your chocolate lab. Here's a picture of our Maggie Mae she Chick-Khan (that's the name we gave our new adoptee) get along great. Maggie loves water and loves to perform at Dock Dogs. I'll keep all posted on Chick-Khan

 
Welcome to BYC! I wonder if the eggs are fertile? You can try moving her and the nest into a more secure area, I've moved my hen that was on a nest before. Good luck.
 

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