New chicky help

[chickymom85]

Hi everyone!
Our broody has just hatched her first egg!! (YAY!) With this comes a load of excitement and questions. Lol We have decided to be as hands off as we can and let the mama take care of her babies. We are also going to leave them all in the coop with our flock to keep her pecking spot and to allow the mama to integrate the hens. With that said, I do have a question:
Should we lower our water/feeder so the chicks can reach or will the mom handle that?
I understand that the mom will help the chicks down off the nesting box, and I assume help them back up. So will she also help them to the waterer/feeder?
Any advice and help is welcomed and appreciated!!

 

[chicknmania]

Yes, I would make sure that the water and feeders are accessible to the chicks. We always keep mom and chicks in a separate pen in the barn for the first few weeks, and put them out in our outside chicken "tractor" on nice days. Our flock free ranges, so we just feel like it's safer for the chicks and helps the mom a little, We let our moms and chicks out with the flock when the chicks are five to six weeks old. That's just what we do. Sometimes other flock members will pick on the chicks, but usually the mother will be able to defend them. If you're going to let her do her own thing, you might want to just keep an eye out for her, in case she needs any help.

 

[chickens really]

Once she gets them to ground level the Chicks won't be able to get back up to the nest...Feed and water low and close so Chicks can eat and drink...If all goes well? No need to separate..Keep an eye on them though....

 

[lazy gardener]

Also, be sure the waterer you use in the chick area is drown proof. If the chicks have access to your big girl's run, the same safety precaution applies. Fall is hawk migration season, so depending on your location, those babies will be even more of a hawk target now than they might be earlier in the season. keep that in mind.

 

[chicknmania]

You can put some pebbles in the water to help keep it drown proof. Personally I've never had a problem with chicks drowning, and we quit using pebbles a long time ago. I would hardly laugh at someone who's never had chickens before and is asking for help, so please excuse anyone being rude, I'm sure it wasn't intentional. You had a legitimate question, because really, when you think about it, how would chickens do it without human intervention! Probably nest on the ground and so forth, but I can see why you had questions. Good luck with your babies however you do it, congratulations & have fun!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Don't feel bad, we all have to start somewhere. The important thing is that you asked the questions. And from some of the posts on this forum I can see where you can get some wrong ideas.

Some information on how high your nests, feeders, and waterers are could help with specific ideas. The way a hen gets chicks down from a high nest is that she tells them to jump and they do. I've seen a hen get her chicks down from a ten feet high hay loft. They jumped to the ground, bounced up, and ran to her. While chicks just a couple of days old are pretty mobile she is not likely to take them back to the old nest if it is much off the ground. My hens brood the chicks at night on the coop floor, usually in a corner but sometimes in the middle of the floor. Some people put nests on the coop floor for the hen to use, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

The feed and water for the chicks pretty much needs to be at ground level or just an inch or two up, at least for the first bit. I can lower my hanging feeder to the coop floor. A broody hen will pick food out of something higher and move it down to the floor level where they can get to it but make her life a lot easier by putting food dawn low. By the time my chicks are two weeks old they are flying up to my other feeders, they can fly really well by two weeks old. But life is easier for them if the food is down low.

This will give you an idea of how I water them. This is for my grow-out coop where they are weeks older but for baby chicks I put this on the coop floor on top of a piece of plywood set on the shavings. The chickens scratch bedding into it if I just put it on top of the shavings, the plywood helps keep the bedding out of the water. To keep the chicks from drowning I fill this with rocks which are plentiful and free around here.

 

[chickymom85]

Thank you all for your great advice! Very helpful.
We have only ever bought chicks and raised them inside in our basement and then integrated them. Totally new to the brooding side of things.
We use the water nipples and when we had smaller chicks we used the nipples in a milk jug and made it low. So that is likely what we will do in light of the advice.
However, looks like it may have to wait anyway. One of my other hens killed and ate the baby chick. But we have a few more potential eggs.
Talk about trail and error. Lol Thank you again!!

 

[chicknmania]

That's why we keep our mother hens and small chicks separate from the flock. It can happen easily. Because of that, I still stick to my original suggestion...keep the mother and babies separate for a few weeks. So sorry for your loss. But you'll have lots of chances, probably. We have two broodies out with their chicks right now, and four chicks without a mama. Our first broody is a bantam, she hatched two chicks and they are now about 9 weeks old, but she still keeps them with her most of the time, and they sleep with her at night still, though they are both bigger than her!. We let them out at six weeks, so they were able to fly to a low roost with her. Our second broody has two chicks, they were six weeks old today. WE let them out yesterday, and although she stays with them during the day, she flies to a high roost and leaves them abandoned on the floor for the night. They are quickly learning to be strong flyers, so they'll join her soon. Our four mama-less chicks did not go out until 7 weeks, as they have no mother. They are still sleeping on the barn floor, but they stay together at all times, and they are very protective of their smallest "sibling". Just some examples of how different some scenarios can be, but the birds always manage to figure it out, eventually. Good luck for the future.