Single bantam chick with mom: What to do?

[jskirwin]

Hi
I have a small flock of 4 bantams and 4 "regular" sized hensI rescued from a teenage neighbor.The 2 of the bantams are roosters but get along well enough. All are free range with 2 coops in a fenced quarter acre in front of the house. They have been together a year with few signs of aggression.

One of the bantam hens went broody 21 days ago, and but that didn't stop the other hens from laying in her nest box. In the past I let nature take its course, which meant that after about 3 days the bantam hen was sitting on close to a dozen eggs. Eventually one of the eggs broke creating a big mess in the nest box. This time I took the larger eggs out of the nest box and let the bantam sit on her own. Today is the 21st day and right on schedule I have a single bantam chick with mom in the nest box.

So now what?

Will the other chickens leave the chick alone, or do I need to isolate mom and chick? I've bought starter from Tractor Supply, and handfed mom and chick. Mom ate heartily while chick watched her and pecked at the food.

I'm completely clueless, so any advice is appreciated.

 

[Bunnylady]

Any chance there are any more fertile eggs under her?


I would isolate mom and chick. I know other people leave hens with the flock, and they manage to raise chicks just fine, but my hens are savages. With my birds, if a tiny chick gets separated from its mother, it's a goner. I you really want to raise this chick, you probably should separate it (and its mother) from the flock at least until it is fully feathered out. It'll make feeding it easier, too - unless you want to feed chick starter to your entire flock!

 

[nurse_turtle]

Butterface and little Fuzz-Bucket say, "Just leave them be. They'll be fine."
Butterface is a bantam Cochin/Silkie mix and Fuzz-Bucket is her baby and is a bantam Cochin/Silkie/Polish with frizzled and silkied feather.

 

[janinepeters]

They don't always hatch on the same day, so I would move mother, chick, eggs and nest to a new location separate from the flock. My bantam hen didn't seem able to protect her bantam chicks from the rest of the flock (mostly large sized hens). The big ones went after them and mom was not able to shoo them away, so I scooped them up and moved them. It looked to me like the big ones were going to eat them.

When the chicks were 2-3 wks old I put mother and chicks back in coop with whole flock and they were fine, as they were nimble enough to get away if a big one came after them, with a little bit of help from mom.

 

[jskirwin]

Well so far mother hen and chick made it through the day fine without hassle from any of the other hens or roosters, at least as far as I've seen. They made their way down from the nest box to the ground floor of the the coop where there's hay and their out of the way (birds perch and nest on 2nd floor).

So far responses are 2-1 in favor of isolation. I'm going to watch them tomorrow and at the first sign of trouble I'm going to bring them both inside and put them in a crate with a heat lamp. I may do it anyway. My only concern with doing this is reintroducing them to the flock in a few weeks. Things have been quite peaceful over the past months, and I'd hate for that spell to break. But living in the country has taught me the truth behind the saying "nature red in tooth and claw," so I don't expect hens to lock wings and sing "Kumbaya" together.

 

[AZ_HenHouse]

I have 2 banty hens and 6 regular sized hens. The banty is broody all the time and raises her babies in the flock. The other hens sometimes check out the new babies but after a confronttion with mamma, they leave well enough alone.
If she is a good mamma then you wont have to worry and it saves having to reintroduce them later.

Now if she does not protect the chick, you will want to step in.

Did any more hatch out? We want pictures

Good luck.

 

[janinepeters]

I don't think you will need a heat lamp if you isolate them. If mother has accepted the chick, then she will brood it when necessary.

 

[janinepeters]

Re: introducing back into flock in a few weeks: This went very smoothly for me. The other birds already know the hen, and will not forget about her after just a few weeks. As long as she is somewhat protective of the chicks and the chicks are quick enough to stay out of trouble, the other birds will quickly accept them as part of the flock. At first I put them with the flock during the day only, and brought them back to their quarters for the night, just to be sure there was no violence early in the morning. But once I had them back with the flock both day and night, there were no problems. It was MUCH easier than integrating a new flock that I raised in a brooder box.

 

[Chemguy]

Let them all be. They will do a far better job than you, I or anyone else could do. I'll suggest having some food and water available near the nest until momma takes the chick out and about. If the others bother her or the chick, they'll learn pretty quickly that it is not a good idea to do so. Momma will also regulate temperature better than any human could.

I placed 6 chicks under a broody at Easter. In the following weeks it rained, froze, and went up to 75F. No heat lamp was needed at any point. The chicks would pop out, do their thing and burrow back into their down-lined momma. I placed food and water under an old milk crate. The chicks could pop under without problems and the adults couldn't get to it.

 

[jskirwin]

Well we've completed the 3rd day and mom and chick are doing fine and still with the group. I feed the flock the usual Demour pellets, throwing it into the grass where they peck at it. Mom runs away from the little one for a minute or two, then comes back after getting a bite. I then feed mom and baby a handful of chick starter, check the chick and give mom a scratch - something I can't do any other time. Mom seems to be doing a good job, flaring her feathers when any hen gets anywhere near her, but I haven't seen any signs of aggression from the other birds so far. She leads the chick all over the place with her low pitched clucks. Baby is booted, and since I have two roosters, a booted one and the English game cock you see in my profile pic, I know who daddy is.