When to move hen with chicks to the coop, when they hatched inside

[Fairview01]

Well getting involved in the process wasn't the best thing to do imo.

Theres a bigger problem here and that is the social hierarchy with the other hens now needs to be reestablished. So unless the broody and chicks are completely separated from the flock the broody has 2 challenges - protect her chicks and protect herself from other hens. In this scenario the chicks will come out with the worse of it.

If it were me I'd put the hen back into the flock and the chicks in a brooder. Next time leave her in with the flock and she will take care of it. That's what's nice about a broody.

 

[Acre4Me]

The hen may have trouble getting the chicks up that ramp the first several days when you let them out.

Yes, the chicks are not likely to go up a ramp with one point of access (the front). In the pic I posted above of our set-up with the ramp into the brooder, we found that even chicks of a couple weeks old could not always figure out to go to the front of the ramp to follow momma, particularly if they were not near the front of the ramp, but momma was calling them to her - they would go to her, which was near to the pop-door at the top of the ramp. We solved this by placing pavers in a step fashion so that the chicks could hop up onto the ramp at almost any point as you can see in the picture above.

 

[aart]

We solved this by placing pavers in a step fashion so that the chicks could hop up onto

I made a 'training ramp'.

 

[Acre4Me]

I made a 'training ramp'.
View attachment 1729358

I guess ours were not smart enough! In my pic, you can see how low/short the ramp is. The previous batch of momma hen raised chicks had a few that just couldn’t figure it out, and would be frantic trying to join momma at top of ramp, but they were close to the building and would just dart back and forth trying to figure it out. So, we finally just stacked pavers so that the chicks could hop up from any direction, at almost any point in the ramp.