Will all the hens raise the chicks if they all sat on the eggs?

[Housespider]

I have 3 silkie-faverolle cross hens who are all sitting on the same nest of eggs. It is about time for them to hatch, and I was curious about who will be raising the chicks? Will all three do it together?

I have only ever done the hatching in the incubator, so not familiar with allowing the hens to do it themselves.

 

[Folly's place]

Anything might happen, I guess.
Here we have one broody hen on the nest, with eggs that will all hatch at about the same time, in a cage within the coop but separated from the flock.
It's possible that the hens will fight over these chicks, killing some or all of them. Or, things will be peaceful.
I'd remove two of the broodies and let one raise these chicks, and i hope that the eggs were all brooded at the same time, so hatching won't be spread out too far.
Mary

 

[raingarden]

Our quasi-feral flock will make communal nests. I have seen different hens sitting on a nest on successive days but not know if that is the norm. If two different hens hatch a clutch about the same time (within a day or so of each other) the chicks get mixed and nobody knows who belongs to who. It's total confusion.

 

[aart]

I have 3 silkie-faverolle cross hens who are all sitting on the same nest of eggs. It is about time for them to hatch, and I was curious about who will be raising the chicks? Will all three do it together?

Only time will tell...do let us know how it works out.

 

[NatJ]

I have 3 silkie-faverolle cross hens who are all sitting on the same nest of eggs. It is about time for them to hatch, and I was curious about who will be raising the chicks? Will all three do it together?

Sometimes they will work together and sometimes not.

I would probably let them try it, but have a separate pen ready in case you need to separate them for any reason, and watch what happens.


When they do work together, you may still have odd situations like when one hen decides it's time to roost at night, and another hen is still willing to sleep on the floor with the chicks, and too many chicks try to crowd under the hen on the floor (not a problem in hot weather, possibly an issue in cold weather, depending on how old the chicks are at the time.)

Sometimes one hen will decide that all chicks are hers, and will try to chase the other hens away. The other hens may fight back, or may sit at a distance clucking for the chicks to come to them.

Sometimes one hen will decide that certain chicks (or certain colors of chicks) are not acceptable, so she will reject those chicks and chase them away or hurt them, but another hen might be quite willing to accept those chicks.

If the eggs were laid at different times, I would probably put the first chicks with one hen in one pen, and leave the other hens to continue incubating the later eggs. That way they do not all try to raise the first chicks, and let the eggs die of cold.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If the eggs were laid at different times,

I think you meant if incubation started at different times. I know you know it doesn't matter when it was laid, it's when incubation starts that you start the countdown.

What NatJ is talking about is what we call a staggered hatch, different eggs start incubation at different times so some hatch earlier than others and the hen has to decide when to take her hatched chicks off the nest to find food and water and abandon the unhatched eggs to die. I have no idea what would happen with multiple broody hens on the eggs. I remember one post on here where one hen took the chicks and the other stayed behind on the eggs. I was amazed at that.

I have no idea what will happen if the eggs all hatch at the same time. As you can see from the other responses above, many different things can happen. There are several posts on the forum where multiple broody hens work well together to hatch and raise the chicks. There have been posts where one broody would kill the chicks that hatch under a different broody. I had one broody hen on her own nest leave that nest and fight another broody for control of the eggs when her eggs started hatching. They destroyed half the eggs in that fight. Sometimes broody hens fight over who gets to raise the chicks.

Usually these bad things don't happen. Usually. But I can be risk adverse, I don't allow multiple broody hens on the same nest. I generally don't allow multiple broody hens in the same coop, but that's more because of my goals than anything else. I don't feel the need to take the chance and I did have that bad experience.

 

[NatJ]

I think you meant if incubation started at different times. I know you know it doesn't matter when it was laid, it's when incubation starts that you start the countdown.

Yes, it matters when incubation starts. You're right that eggs can be laid over multiple days, and as long as the hen starts sitting on them at the same time, they will all hatch at the same time.

I was thinking of when new eggs are laid in the nest after other eggs are already being incubated by a hen (fairly common when there are multiple hens in one pen, and some are still laying when one goes broody.) So in that particular case, the eggs that are laid later do start their incubation later as well.

What NatJ is talking about is what we call a staggered hatch, different eggs start incubation at different times so some hatch earlier than others and the hen has to decide when to take her hatched chicks off the nest to find food and water and abandon the unhatched eggs to die.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant

 

[Housespider]

UPDATE


Only one chick hatched sadly. The chick looks great, it has two moms that follow it around.

If I can find a few more chicks from somewhere I will raise a batch I reckon.

 

[K0k0shka]

Try to find more chicks as soon as possible, and the hens might accept and adopt them, though there are no guarantees (be prepared to raise them yourself if the hens reject them).

There's too much variability in how this kind of thing can play out, like others have already mentioned. Some of these arrangements are peaceful and work out fine, others end up in disaster... There's no way to know until you cross that bridge. If your hens are so far acting peaceful with each other and accepting of the chick, then that's a very good sign.

I just had two hens hatch and raise 7 chicks together this past spring. They didn't sit on the same nest - in fact I was only planning on having 1 broody, but a second one went broody soon after so after trying and failing to break her for several weeks, I finally gave her some of the other hen's chicks a couple of days after they hatched. She took to them immediately (she's a proven good mama though), and the two hens eventually merged the chicks and raised all of them together. Personality plays a huge role though. Even though all the chicks were originally hen #1's, and she should've been more accepting of them (hen #2 didn't even hatch them, and got them as 2-day-olds so you'd expect more resistance from her), in reality hen #1 was always more motherly towards the chicks that stayed with her, and would occasionally chase the chicks that I gave to the other hen. Nothing major, and she still fed them and took care of them, she would just occasionally remember their "betrayal" and give them the beak. Hen #2 was wonderfully motherly towards all the chicks, even the ones that were never "hers" to begin with. The group moved together and slept together despite these minor internal conflicts, and if one hen made a decision (like whether to roost or not), the other one and the chicks followed her. It was interesting to observe how the hens could always tell which chicks belonged to whom initially (before the merge), and showed preference for their own chicks until the end, even though the chicks were the same age and size and identical in color. And it was only a couple of days at the beginning before the two groups merged, but it seems like those couple of days made a lasting impression on everybody.