- Apr 12, 2012
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This may not be an emergency on par with some of the others, so forgive me if I'm putting this in the wrong place.
OK, the back story, we got 4 hens a year ago, and one of them started brooding a couple of weeks ago. Concerned that she'd starve herself and because, as new chicken owners, we don't know jack, we started asking around for suggestions.
One was to buy two peeps and sneak them in under her, replacing the eggs that she was sitting on, in the middle of the night so she'd think she hatched some babies. It worked, but now we have no ****** idea what to do. This morning, I went out to find the "momma" out and about, but not at all interested in the chicks and the two chicks had made it out of the coop, down the ramp, and into the pen. It's still too chilly out if they're not going to be swaddled by one of the hens and they don't seem to want anything to do with them aside from pecking at them from time to time (though it doesn't appear that they're really terrorizing them).
I've brought them inside into the box that we used when we got our first four. Do they now need to live inside until they're grown enough to be outside like the others? Will that cause some trauma to "mom" or should I assume by the fact that she basically abandoned them that she's rejected them as hers.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
OK, the back story, we got 4 hens a year ago, and one of them started brooding a couple of weeks ago. Concerned that she'd starve herself and because, as new chicken owners, we don't know jack, we started asking around for suggestions.
One was to buy two peeps and sneak them in under her, replacing the eggs that she was sitting on, in the middle of the night so she'd think she hatched some babies. It worked, but now we have no ****** idea what to do. This morning, I went out to find the "momma" out and about, but not at all interested in the chicks and the two chicks had made it out of the coop, down the ramp, and into the pen. It's still too chilly out if they're not going to be swaddled by one of the hens and they don't seem to want anything to do with them aside from pecking at them from time to time (though it doesn't appear that they're really terrorizing them).
I've brought them inside into the box that we used when we got our first four. Do they now need to live inside until they're grown enough to be outside like the others? Will that cause some trauma to "mom" or should I assume by the fact that she basically abandoned them that she's rejected them as hers.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
