Question about keeping newly hatched chicks with flock.

[Kathyb2]

I just did this both ways. I had a broody hatch in single chick in my tractor coop. That coop is not set up well for chicks so I removed hen and chick. In another coop I had a broody hatch 5 chicks. I left them in the coop. The chicks in the coop did great. The mother protected them for around three weeks and now the others ignore them for the most part. It took me 3 tries to get the hen from the tractor coop back in the tractor coop with her chick.

 

[chicken-rooquacks]

I have my first broody hen. Been wanting to trade stressed chicks in a box for being born on the farm. This helped me so much. Ive always thought itd be better to not intervene

. Id liked to add my experience thus far maybe it Will help future people with the same questions.

I watched my flock with some day olds i introduced at 6 weeks far before my first broody hen. They did not have a mother protecting them for they were simply bought at a hatchery

In my experience the egg laying machines or aggressive breeds leghorns ri reds etc. tend to be your biggest threat to having a tendancy to massscre young chicks like a tomcat.

My rooster is a silkie. He only kills the 6 - 8 week old juvenile males who agressively torment him and try to harass him into a sparing match. And to be honest thats just asking for it. Normally hell do this only if theres a surplus of very young males. Like 10 or more. Thus, sometimes he thins them out for me before i have a chance to do so myself. If they leave him alone he leaves them alone. If they test minimally he gives them a slap on the wrist. He uses brute force as a last result.

Hens have been raising chicks with the flock for thousands of years, even before they were domesticated. Some people, for good reasons, separate the broody and her chicks from the flock. There are risks and advantages both ways. I think how much room Mama has to work with is an important issue, but there are other things involved. They are living animals with their own personality. No one can tell you how your chickens will react to the situation. We can give you our experiences both ways and maybe help you, but it is ultimately your decision.

I personally prefer Mama to take care of their integration issues. To me that is worth all the other risk, but then I have a lot of space to work with. The chicks still have to work out their own pecking order issues, but they have to do that anyway and that does not come into play until long after Mama has weaned them.

Some flocks have chickens in them that will seek out and destroy young chicks. It is almost always a hen but it is possible a rooster will do this. A good broody will defend her chicks and teach the aggressive chicken some facts of life, whether it is a hen or rooster. Most broodies have such a bad attitude that the other chickens soon learn to give them a wide berth, but not all broodies are good defenders. I don't think anyone can truly predict how yours will be. If they have enough room, most broodies will keep their chicks away from the flock most of the time to cut down on these chances for conflict.

Most flocks do not have chickens in them that will seek out and destroy young chicks. This does not mean the chicks are perfectly safe, but it does make Mama's life easier. You still have the pecking order issues. These young chicks are at the bottom of the pecking order. That is just the way it is. As long as they stay away from the other chickens, that is not a big deal. But a chicken higher in the pecking order has to defend her position or lose it. Chicken etiquette requires that a chicken lower in the pecking order does not invade the personal space of another chicken higher in the pecking order without putting itself at risk. If the higher ranking chicken feels insulted that this lower ranking chicken would invade its personal space (They do not always react this way, just when they feel they need to enforce discipline) the higher ranking chicken pecks the lower ranking chicken, the lower ranking chicken immediately realizes it breached etiqutte, and runs away in shame. The incident is over with and life is again peaceful in the flock.

Where all this relates to the chicks is that the chicks are definitely lower in the pecking order. I have seen a two week old chick leave Mama's protection and go stand by a grown chicken at the feeder and eat. Sometimes the older chicken will ignore the young intruder, but sometimes it pecks the chick to remind it that it has broken the proper chicken etiquette by daring to eat with its betters. The chick runs and flaps back to Mama as fast as it can go. The Mama hen ignores this. This is a different situation than a hen seeking out to destroy a chick. I guess it takes a flock to teach a chick proper etiquette. Where the danger comes in in all this is that the discipline peck is a hard peck delivered by a much bigger hen to a small chick. It is not intended to injure the chick and usually it does not, but it can injure or kill the chick. Another risk is that the chick is trapped against a fence or in a corner and cannot get away. The older hen is really insulted by this young intruder not leaving her personal space and really goes after the chick. Again, having enough room is important.

Many people think roosters are a big danger to chicks. Not mine. I have never seen a rooster discipline a chick for invading its personal space. I have had the situation where a Mama hen went out of a gate and turned back along the fence before all the chicks follower her out. The result was the Mama was on one side of the fence and several of her chicks were on the other side. None of them had any concept of go to the gate. I had one broody that did this several times that I saw her and she only had 4 chicks. Dumb, dumb, dumb broody! Anyway, when this happened, the rooster would go to the chicks that were separated and lay down, watching them. He was there to protect the chicks until Mama could work it out. I swear the third or fourth time I saw this, he just went over, laid down, and sort of sighed "Not again!". A lot of roosters would not do this, but some will. They all are different. And none of the other hens came over to attack the defenseless chicks when this happened.

Other people can truthfully tell you stories of how other hens or maybe a rooster have killed chicks with a broody. I cannot predict what will happen in your case.

The way I do it is, after the Mama hen brings her babies off the nest, I put them in isolation for a couple of days so Mama can teach the young ones how to eat and drink. I find the young chicks learn this best if they are not competing with the older hens. But after a couple of days, I let them loose with the flock.

I wish you good luck however you decide to do it.

 

[alexa009]

As long as the mother is the alpha hen then I would separate her from the rest of the flock. I always keep a crate or separate area in my pen incase any chickens need to be separated for various reasons such as bullying or going broody.

 

[Shorty22366]

My 3 wilkie hens have all gone broody sitting on 18 eggs between them. Two will leave their nest for a few minutes and then go back. My Flo the one who never leaves her nest steals theirs. They are in the same nest but it is huge. When they come back some of their eggs are missing and Flo acts like she knows nothing. My rooster Ben brings Flo bugs, grass and anything I give them. He also will sit on the other nest if they are out for a minute but gets right up when they come back. I have four roosters all silkies and they take really good care of my hens. Since this is first time my babies have hatched babies we will see how it goes but I don't think we will have any problems. Wish us luck.

 

[Coop de Grass]

I have never had problems with my broody hens raising their chicks with the flock. I have also slipped foster chicks under a broody who is frustrated. I have broken a broody once by removing her from the nest box constantly for 2 days...

I had 4 roosters in my flock last year, and never had problems with them bothering with the chicks. Currently I have no roos. I have 6 week old chicks that were fostered by a broody. She got them up onto the roost when they wer 4 weeks old, allowed them to roost under her for 5 days, and now she harasses them when they are on the second roost in her vicinity! I think she is "weaning" them. They are pretty independent in the run, and the hens keep them in line like a bunch of aunties!

Here they are in a nest box on May 2, all hatched on May 1. The chicken wire is to keep the chicks from falling out - the floor is 5 inches below the lip and there is a roost level with the floor of the nest box.

 

[AquaDuck]

A thing to remember in this issue is the layout of the coop. Can mother go somewhere the chicks can't follow? What's the entrance from the coop to the outside run like? A long, slippery ladder can leave a chick outside while momma goes inside. If the weather is cold, this could be a problem as the chick chills. Same if the nestbox is high up in the air, and the chick starts their lives having to tumble several feet to the ground.

One of the reasons I separate broodies is for disease control. I know the run has coccidiosis on the ground (due to previous owner not cleaning up after sick goats. Lost 12 chicks first year before I realised. Now I have all young birds in a different part of the farm. Not lost any since). Not a problem for adults, but could be deadly for chicks.

Free ranging tiny chicks would also be dangerous due to birds of prey in the area, so I keep broody and chicks in a chicken tractor for the first weeks.

 

[Coop de Grass]

Agreed with @the cluck juggler! Coop and the location of nest boxes in the coop are very important. My broodies are always on the lowest row of my nest boxes with a wire screen that allows the broody out, but keeps the chicks in the box until they are about a week old so that they don't fall out accidentally. Once they start jumping up onto that screen, I remove it because in my set up they can now get from the coop floor up to the roost and then into the nest box. The screen is removed at that age. I deliberately keep the inside ramp out of the coop while the chicks are 1 to 2 weeks old. This time, they figured out how to jump up to the door. The outer ramp has a gentle slope.

My flock has never free ranged for more than an hour while I am with them, but the chicks have gone out with the flock. Keep in mind, I am on a 1 acre lot. I no longer have roosters because the township won't allow them tho my neighbors protested their removal!

I have not lost chicks to sickness, but I think a lot depends on the keeper and the flock. I believe that chicks under a broody develop resistance to most diseases but chicks hatched in the incubator must be kept in a brooder and fed medicated feed to transition them.
Either way good luck!

 

[tuesdaylove]

I personally leave the broody hen and her eggs/chicks with the flock. I've tried keeping hen and chicks separate, then re-integrating, and I've tried raising just the chicks alone indoors. I have had the most success just leaving the hen and chicks outdoors. I've heard people say that the other flock members might kill the chicks, but a good broody hen is very protective of her babies.

I once had a solitary chick that I raised in the house, and then tried to introduce her to the flock once she was older. The others gave her the hardest time and picked on her for months. I also had a broody hen with one chick that I separated until the chick was older, and they both had a hard time moving back into the flock, even with mom there to protect her baby.

I've had one instance where a hen hatched three eggs, then three months later hatched two more. She cared for five chicks, and even with them being different ages, the other flock members -- just one roo and one hen -- never bothered them. Then I had another solitary chick raised by a hen within a flock of one roo and two other hens, and again, the little guy was never bothered because he was always a part of the flock.

When you let chicks grow up in the flock from day one, yes, they will eventually be picked on as they find their place in the pecking order, but I've never personally had a baby chick picked on. That starts when they're a couple of months old, and able to defend themselves a little better.

 

[MyChickenShack]

My experience is minimal but I too have let mama do the work. With that said, our chickens are locked up at night but all day that free range over how ever much space they want...they are all over the place even up in the woods...they have all the space they need. Currently I have 2 mamas co-parenting 6 chicks. I usually see the "family" together out and about doing there own thing and they will come up to the coop and eat with the others without problem. They all sleep in same coop without issue. Thats not to say there wont be a problem in my future, but so far so good.

 

[RWise]

Can you keep chicks that hatched from their mother with the rest of the flock? I have a hen sitting right now on eight eggs. When they hatch will they be set into the pecking order or what? It is currently a flock of 3 hens and a rooster. Will the mother protect them from the other hens and rooster? Or wha?

My hen hatched chicks are in the flock at 2-3 days old, soon as moma is ready to leave the nest with them, even in the snow. The higher the hen ranks, the more protected the chicks are. My rooster(s) (any of them) absolutely luv chicks, and feed them even the little boys, just as they do the big girls. It is a normal thing for a flock to have chicks in it!
Here is a proud rooster with 6 week old chicks