Will a hen take over to be a mother with chicks?

[amberflea]

I did search but cant find the answer, I want to put out my 3 week old chicks into the coop, I have a seperate brooder pen for them with a heat lamp, which I think should be fine, although I am worried. I do have 8 adult hens of different varieties, is it possible to put one of the hens in the pen with the chicks for them to be mothered? a couple did go broody on me, and are probably sitting on some invisible eggs now... I have brahma bantys (the chicks are brahma silkie cross) one polish hen that I havent seen lay an egg since I got her, but seems very submissive, an older little cochin hen who is kind of bossy.
What do you think? Has this been done at all? I am new to chicks and just worried about them going to the coop, but they are outgrowing the box in the bedroom and its becoming quite messy even tho its cleaned several times a day, they need more space. (the brooder has thick pine shavings.) A first for them, as now they are on paper towels and doggie pee pads.
Thanks

 

[bantyshanty]

Amberflea,
Sorry, they are too old to be mama'd by any of your hens. They've long lost their "peep appeal". Hens will only adopt chicks that are a couple days or newly hatched.
Just enlarge their cardboard box --make or find a bigger one, move them to another location you don't care about as much, and persevere with them. They can begin going on supervised outings to the run, if you have one.
If you have hardware cloth or chicken wire, you can make a little portable run inside the big one, so they'll be protected from the big nhens until they can easily fly or run away from them 95 to 8 weeks, I think, depending on the breed).