New baby (pic)! And a couple questions.

[Equus]

One of our easter eggers went broody and we let her. This is our first year with roosters (Feb hatch.) She is hoarding a clutch of 17. The first 5 she sat on were 21 days old yesterday. She gathered this clutch over a 2 week time span. We aren't expecting all of them to hatch or for her to have patience to hatch them all. The 2 roosters are exhibition RIR. Our hens are exhibition RIR, buff chanteclers, easter eggers, we think a true blue whiting, and a couple black stars. So we've got barnyard mutts coming. We were out deworming the flock today when momma came out for a break. So I went to take a peek at her eggs and found this baby. My kiddo cried tears of joy.

So a couple questions.

1) The shell is missing. Did momma eat it? Is that normal? I have no idea which hen this baby is from (not that it matters).

2) I cleaned and put new shavings in the 2 neighboring nesting boxes and I removed the dividers so mom and baby have more space. She didn't seem to mind. The far side from her nest, I placed the baby chick waterer and chick feed. Baby wasn't interested in the water (we did beak dip) but did pick at the feed. (As did Momma) When she is done sitting on her nest I plan to relocate her and and chicks to our small isolation coop. Now that I've already done all that was it the right thing to do? Or should I have just left the nesting box size the way it was? Does baby not need the water and food? We've only gotten day old chicks in the past and not sure how hands off we can be. Our hens free range and the water dish would be too tall and too far for a chick to reach when she takes baby out eventually.

 

[Debbie292d]

What a cutie! Congrats!!


Since you said these eggs were laid over a two week period, you're going to have to either have an incubator to put some in to finish hatching or another broody hen, as your hen will eventually leave the nest with the little ones to get food/water and start showing them around.

Newly hatched chicks can live off their yolk they just absorbed for 72 hours, so no, they don't need food/water right away.

As for the shell, maybe it's broken up and mixed in with the shavings. I suppose she could have eaten it but mine never have. She's not laying eggs so it's not like she'd need the calcium, so that's why I don't think they usually eat them.

Making the nest box larger was considerate of you as you said, she seemed to like it. As long as it doesn't invite the other hens to jump in there too in case they'd be mean.