What to do when baby chicks are born to nest in the woods, outside the coop?

[sourland]

Welcome to BYC. Excellent advice from Redsoxs and Crooked Creek. Good luck with a successful resolution to this situation.

 

[WoolfsClothing]

Glad you posted this, tmelo! I have read the great advice given so far, but I still have a few questions...

We just discovered a secret nest on the other side of our fence after one of our hens was missing for a full day and night. We found a nest of 18 EGGS that she has been sitting on... we suspect at least 2 co-conspirators, as we have caught both her and her sister on that side of the fence lately, and 2 of the eggs are from our Ameraucana hen. We made the decision to let her sit on the nest and see what happens. We didn't want to eat the eggs after incubation had started, and we hated to just throw them out. I figure that if Mother Nature let her get away with sneaking that clutch under our noses, we might as well give her the benefit of the doubt and see where this little adventure takes us!

Here is the nest just after we found it - we drew her out with a loud "here chick chick chick" accompanied by the sound of some yummy scratch shaking in a cup... get's them every time



So - my concern is this: What can we do for her while she is sitting on the eggs and then what to do with the chicks once they are born. She is stationed right next to the driveway and is not behind any kind of fencing... so we are afraid of neighborhood dogs, foxes, etc getting to her while she's brooding, and then how do we protect the chicks once they are hatched?

I thought about putting some chicken wire around the tree/bush where her nest is... and maybe tarp the top to keep the rain out and just let her use that as her brooding area once the chicks are hatched. That would make for a hard re-introduction to the rest of the flock though, I would think. I also thought about trying to move her AND the eggs back into the fenced-in area... maybe in our large dog-carrier as suggested by another thread. But then, once they are hatched, I'm afraid our dog (who loves and protects the big chickens) might see the babies as tasty little treats! Also, I'd be afraid she would abandon the eggs once she and the nest were disturbed and moved to a more populated, busy area... and we're going on 4 days now... so they have tiny little beating hearts and everything. I would just hate to see them abandoned... all that potential fluffy sweetness lost

So - any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks!!