Will hens adopt?

[chickschool]

I would like to get 2 or 3 more chicks but I don't want the hassle of setting up the brooder so I was wondering if anyone has had luck introducing day old chicks to a broody hen and having her adopt them.

 

[austinandkara]

I have never done this myself but I have read before that if a broody hen has recently hatched chicks you can place the new chicks under her while she is getting ready to go to sleep. Just cover the new chick in your hand as much as possible and just place it under her. It's worth a try.

 

[chickschool]

That sounds like it could work. I'm going to give it a try. I would order hatching eggs but I really don't want to end up with any roosters.

 

[chickschool]

I wonder if any of the other chickens would have and issue with the new chicks. My two hens hatched a friends fertile eggs this past spring and shared the experience. They both sat on the eggs and once they hatched they both took on all responsibilities together. It was super cute.

 

[DrinkTheRainbow]

When our chicks were only days old the other hen would not accept the other hens chicks lol so she would peck them away. I'm not sure about yours though

Good Luck

 

[pitbullnh]

At the beginning of the summer my hen hatched 9 of her own babies and some predator ate/chased away all but one (they were about 2 weeks old) survived but she didn't want anything to do with the lone chick, she wanted the cage of chicks (7 days old from an incubator at the elementary school)The mother bird sat on top of their cage cooing and squawking. So I put her baby in with the younger ones, it wasn't doing well without the mother, and put mom in the cage. Aside from attacking me, and the school chicks freaking out...they all learned to love each other.

I have tried other times and the bird attacks the chicks.

I have never tried at night...I figure then you'll wake everyone up and you'll be attacked in the dark..ouch....but maybe it's better lol...

Good luck..let us know
Dawn

 

[lynn1961]

My broody welsummer hatched 5 chicks out. I had a batch of eggs in the incubator that hatched a week later. When the incubator chicks were one week old I mixed the two groups.
The broody hen accepted the incubator chicks ( 20 of them ).
Granted I had put the hen out of the pen that she and her chicks were in, added the incubator chicks with the others as I though she was done with hers (she kept pacing and trying to figure how to get out it seemed).
I waited for a couple of hours before i let her back in the pen, ( she was so distressed about being out of the pen). She was more fuzzed up and mad at me than she was worried about the incubator chicks. They are one big happy chicken family now. Though I have been thinking that the hen may wish she had not wanted back in the pen so bad with all those chickies running around. She seems to be taking it all in stride. She puffs out at me, growls and jumps at me when she thinks I am about to touch or pick up any of her babies. She has the same issue with any other hens/people/cat that stops by the pen and does not move away soon enough to suite her. It is so funny to watch. The cat makes a wide bearth from that pen now, he does not like his tail pecked.

 

[henney penny]

I had this little polish chick hatch in my incubator the only one,my silkie was hatching out babies and the polish was a week old but I put it under her at night and the next morning things were fine,but the little polish is looking at the silkie chicks saying why do I look different.Its been a week and all if great.

 

[henney penny]

Also had this black sexlink that went broody last year and she sat on golf balls untill my baby chicks came,took them out at night and took the golf balls and as you can see everything worked out great,she was a great mother.

 

[brownysfp]

We've had some success and one disaster. Our Light Sussex happily adopted four chicks in addition to her own four. Put in at night and not shown to her in advance and all was well. We repeated the process with two baby Brahmas - which she killed two days later. No reason that we could see and she hasn't attacked any of the others.