Yesterday, as I was doing chicken chores in the afternoon, I saw one of the 2 chicks laying on the concrete floor of the chicken coop. It was laying on it's side & looking very distressed. I grabbed it up and tried to warm it up & get some homemade electrolytes in it, but it died anyway. Now my hen only had 1 chick to raise. I also saw in the nest box that 2 other dead chicks were in their. I'm guessing they hatched that day or she ate the shell off of them or something. Neither of them had dried off or fluffed up & both were dead. No shells were in the nest box. So, I cleaned out the nest box, put new shavings in it & replaced the 3 eggs that were there. This morning I went to the store & bought 2 B.O. chicks, 2 barred rock chicks & 2 Rhode Island Red chicks. I put all 6 chicks in the nest box. Momma hen had only been there at night, all the day before she was showing her chick around. I hung around to see if she would adopt the new chicks or not. She eventually went over to the nest & looked in & then went back over with her chick. I went inside & then went back out in about 30 minutes. 3 of the new chicks were with the hen & she was showing them food!! 2 others came out of the nest box to join her while I watched. Went back again a few hours later & all 6 new chicks were out of the nest box and resting all around the enclosure, Momma hen was over near her original baby. I am taking that to mean that she has adopted all of the chicks (since she did not act aggressively or chase them off or peck at them) so I took out the last 3 eggs.
So bummed that one of the hatchlings didn't make it, but thrilled that Momma hen adopted all of the surrogate babies!
So bummed that one of the hatchlings didn't make it, but thrilled that Momma hen adopted all of the surrogate babies!
