Will I damage her emotionally ~

[firedove]

Quote:
I had a trap out for raccoons and all I caught was chickens, lol.

Your hen should be fine if you take the chicks. Like someone else said, she will probably look for them in the morning but she will not pine away and die. Most likely she will go back to normal, worst case scenario, she still wants to be broody and gets herself another nest of eggs, not so bad really!

 

[bwebb7]

She will certainly look for them for a day or two. She will be even more "flighty" if you can imagine, but she will be ok.
Maybe you can catch her at the same time and throw her in the pen?
Good luck with the chicks.

 

[fancbrd4me02]

Quote:
I agree with this. Most of the time the chicken will get over you taking her chicks in a day or so...she won't be permanantly scarred. She may remember and associate you as a chick "predator". She will probably go broody. And of course they have emotions, they may not have the complex ones that humans have, but pretty much all higher animals have been shown to have emotions of some kind. It is not adaptive for animals to have no emotions, if you had not emotions you wouldn't live very long. For instance, a chicken without fear would stand around and get killed.

 

[GaNewChick]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I have 3 hens and a roo who are stray birds I have been feeding since a neighbor moved out a couple of years ago and left them. I'm going to take them from her. I may even put her in the coop with the others one night and see how she does. Of course *silly me* worries about breaking her spirit as she has never been confined.

I also have another hen under the neighbor's car that they don't drive much, she was sitting on 28 eggs and today when she come off the nest, I grabbed 17 of them. I candled and was prepared to put any that were developing under one of my broody bantams. All 17 were bad. So I'll have to do this again, once her's hatch.

Interesting subject about emotions. They all have personalities ~ makes sense to me that they would have emotions as well.

 

[DianeB]

There has been quite a bit of research around emotions in animal behavior studies. It has been determined that dogs, apes and rats can laugh. Not to say that chickens can't laugh. There needs to be studies done on them in this area. More and more research is revealing just how complex are animal's emotions, social structure, langage and perception of the world.

Don't underestimate the mother-child bond. Its a very basic social pattern in mammals and birds. Birds are well known for their mothering skills and complex family/social structure. As for this hen being emotionally destrot, it depends on her. Some hens may just walk away after a few hours. Others may wait for their chicks until they die.

 

[MiniBeesKnees]

I think all creatures have a spectrum that has instinct on one end, and emotions on the other end.
In the middle is a big gray area where one morphs into the other.
Personally...I don't know where in that gray area it goes from one to the other.
Terry in Tennessee

 

[Egg_newton]

I had a silkie that hatched out a chick. If I got near her eggs or the chick after it hatched she would try and rip off my finger. I did take the baby once it hatched just because it was easier to put it in with the other chicks I hatched instead of making all the special arrangements to let her keep it. She freaked out for a little while but when I put her back with the rest of the flock she was fine then.

 

[Fairybee]

there is so much we dont know about things on our planet who's to say a cat or a dog doesnt look at us and think why the hell? or wonder why where so stupid, people think sheep are stupid but a farmer by me had a ewe that learnt how to cross a cattle grid by rolling over it she got into every field no matter where you left her she would turn up somewhere else. an animal be it dog, cat, chicken, horse, elephant or whatever speciese they discover in the next few days they are all special and they must all be respected

i dont think it bad you took the chicks from her

but remeber all animals have feelings even if they are simple ones or ones that we could not comprehend, for years they beleived we where the only species to show extreme sorrow but i myself have seen an elephant cry for her stillborn calf.

and i have seen a horse greive for his fallen rider after a bad fall that snapped the riders neck and killed her she was only 13 and not matter what they did the horse would not leave her it was like he could sense something was wrong

i believe all animals have feelings just like we do.

good luck to you, i hope you areable to tame/make friends with her we all need a home.