When can I let ‘me run?

[emmalemons]

So I ended up with 4 chicks total! Gertude( broody hen) is awesome and pecks yet (that’s good ) I built an extension on my coop so her and her chicks could go outdoors. The other hens and rooster are free range. Do you have any suggestions on when I can let the chicks and mum out with them? Fall/winter is rolling around and I’m sure they will want to go out soon I just don’t know how good of an idea that is.Also does anyone know if the chick and the rooster that birthed the chick can birth more? Or will that one will deformed or something? With all that genetic stuff does it matter?

 

[Perris]

congratulations on your gorgeous chicks! Usually a broody will protect the chicks from over-inquisitive others in the flock, and if they've been visible to the rest since hatching, I would think they'll be fine. But more experienced folk will no doubt chime in very soon

 

[emmalemons]

congratulations on your gorgeous chicks! Usually a broody will protect the chicks from over-inquisitive others in the flock, and if they've been visible to the rest since hatching, I would think they'll be fine. But more experienced folk will no doubt chime in very soon

Thanks!

 

[SimplyLivinthatFarmLife]

Your chicks are super cute! Thanks for sharing pics. I hope that my girls will be broody come spring because I would love for them to do the work and not me with the use of an incubator. Good luck to you!

 

[chuckachucka]

Left to their own devices most mother hens will take the chicks outside before the end of the first week.

It sort of depends on where the mother is in the pecking order as to how safe I feel the young chicks are. A dominant mother hen can often protect the chicks from the flock better than a lower submissive one, so I always feel OK with my top hen and the chicks out and about after just a few days but with my smaller bottom of the pecking order mother hens I prefer to isolate them until the chicks are at least a week old. However the longer you leave it the more trouble you will have with the flock accepting the chicks, so I would not leave them more than two weeks.

Be careful with your rooster as well because some roosters are good with chicks and some will attack them. As for your rooster and one of the chicks breeding, plenty of people do interbreed without deformities occuring. I am not a genetic expert but I believe that the more times (generations) you interbreed related animals the higher the chances of genetic defects.

 

[petmainia]

They are so cute! I usually start letting mine out for a little while at a time near dusk because the older hens and rooster will be heading inside soon.

 

[L1sa]

Congratulations on your beautiful little fluff balls, they really are gorgeous. Well done Gertrude.

My chicks are 2 weeks old now and they are integrating into the flock, I kept mum and babies inside the main run but separated for the first week, after that I just opened the door of their little enclosure into the main run and mum shepherded them all out! So far so good.

As for letting them free range, I would probably wait until they are a bit bigger, not because of the other chickens but because there are many other creatures for who a chick would be a wonderful snack; for example crows, magpies, hawks, eagles, and that's just the birds!! But it really depends if you have any of those birds over your way? I would probably wait until somewhere between 4-6 weeks old, just to be safe.

I'm not really up on genetics, but I've read that it doesn't make much of a problem on breeding if dad Rooster sires chicks from his own chicks, proving it's not been a long line of genetic inbreeding.

 

[aart]

Do you have any suggestions on when I can let the chicks and mum out with them?

You want to get the mama to integrate the chicks with the flock sooner rather than later.
Chicks will be susceptible to predators so best do that within the coop/run.