This is very bizarre. So I have one hen that had her chicks hatch at least two weeks ago. She's been walking around with them happy as can be. However, there was another hen who was broody at the same time, and continued trying to sit on the eggs until yesterday (I was removing the eggs from under her every night). Instead of giving up however, today I noticed she had left the nest box and was following the hen that already has two-week old chicks and behaving as if she is the mother of those chicks! She seemed like a crazy lady who because she could not have children of her own had decided to try and steal another's children! LOL. The baby chicks were of course following their real mom around. But I just went into the coop to check on the birds and I found that the imposter mom had kicked the real mom out of the nest box (making her retreat above onto a perch) and had the chicks under her wings! Now, I might understand this hen's behavior if the chicks had just hatched a day or two ago, but they are at least two weeks old if not older. Their wings have already come in! They are already totally bonded with the real mom. The problem is that the imposter mom is higher up on the pecking order than the real mom so was able to kick her out. I decided to put this hen in a closed off space at night. Not sure what else to do. It seems unfair to let her just take over and steal the baby chicks. Lol. But I also see a possibility here. I have two other chicks of the same age that were not recognized by a third hen who has a bunch of baby chicks at the moment. I'm thinking I might try to put them in a cage together with the crazy hen and see if she'll adopt them as her own ... But anyways, has anyone ever dealt with anything like this? It seems like ludicrous, almost human behavior in some way for a hen to want to steal chicks at such an obviously advanced stage in their development
Last edited:
