Separating Mama & chicks @ 8 weeks

[Quackattack717]

So our chicks are about 8 weeks old this weekend. Our neighbor hatched chicks for us with his hen. We have kept Mama Hen since the babies hatched. We read that around 5 weeks Mama Hen can be separated and will start getting annoyed with her babies. We didn’t separate them earlier because we didn’t want to put stress on Mama Hen. Will stress be put on the babies now when we give Mama Hen back? We would like to give her back because she doesn’t seem to be getting annoyed with them and she’s mean to our ducks!

 

[50-45-1]

do you have other chickens?
i wonder how they will do on there own if there are larger chickens they will have to integrate with.

 

[ValerieJ]

Everything stresses out chickens, but they also adjust quickly. Whenever you change their environment they stress a little. They are old enough to be away from mom, so don't worry about them in that sense. I had a broody hatch out some chicks for me, and except for the cockerel she hatched she never actively tried to separate from them. The cockerel began challenging her and she didn't put up with that, but even then she wasn't actually chasing him away, just not backing down. So your broody may never get annoyed.

 

[Quackattack717]

do you have other chickens?
i wonder how they will do on there own if there are larger chickens they will have to integrate with.

Nope. Just them & ducks. But they don’t house together. We have a chicken coop & a duck coop. They just free range together. There are 6 chicks in total, although we don’t know for sure which are female & which are males. (We have our suspicions from looking at wings) We’ll be keeping one rooster & all that are hens. If there are multiple roosters, they’ll be going back to the neighbor where Mama Hen lives.

 

[Quackattack717]

Everything stresses out chickens, but they also adjust quickly. Whenever you change their environment they stress a little. They are old enough to be away from mom, so don't worry about them in that sense. I had a broody hatch out some chicks for me, and except for the cockerel she hatched she never actively tried to separate from them. The cockerel began challenging her and she didn't put up with that, but even then she wasn't actually chasing him away, just not backing down. So your broody may never get annoyed.

Good to know. She’s not our, she’s our neighbors and I’m sure they would like her back. So we’re just going to have to cut the cord for them and take her back one of these days and the chicks will have to adjust to Mama Hen not being around anymore. She’s not very friendly with us, and we want our chickens to be friendly with us so she may be going back this weekend!