Successful Chick Adoption 🥰

[Oregoncoastchick]

Just wanted to share my new mama Marguerite and how getting her to adopt some babies went. She went broody for the first time a few weeks ago and we just happened to have new babies coming from McMurray in exactly 21 days so we thought we’d try to get her to adopt the new layers. We weren’t able to put them out with her their first night but last night we went and took the eggs out from under her and snuck in the chicks. She immediately started cooing at them and they quieted right down. I’ve been obsessively checking on them all morning and she’s doing great! The other hens also have been super respectful and giving them their space. Marguerite is a 8 month Barnevelder and one chick is a Whiting True Blue (Delilah) and the other is a Lakenvelder (Ditzy). Let me know if you have any questions!

 

[Party_Chicken]

How many chicks did you get and what breeds?

 

[Oregoncoastchick]

How many chicks did you get and what breeds?

We got 18 but only 2 layers, the rest are meat chickens. The layers are the ones we had our broody adopt, whiting true blue and a Lakenvelder. The meat birds are ginger broilers.

 

[needmyzzz]

View attachment 3466077 Just wanted to share my new mama Marguerite and how getting her to adopt some babies went. She went broody for the first time a few weeks ago and we just happened to have new babies coming from McMurray in exactly 21 days so we thought we’d try to get her to adopt the new layers. We weren’t able to put them out with her their first night but last night we went and took the eggs out from under her and snuck in the chicks. She immediately started cooing at them and they quieted right down. I’ve been obsessively checking on them all morning and she’s doing great! The other hens also have been super respectful and giving them their space. Marguerite is a 8 month Barnevelder and one chick is a Whiting True Blue (Delilah) and the other is a Lakenvelder (Ditzy). Let me know if you have any questions!

So many questions...did you leave them with the other hens? We don't keep food in house, but we put it in run in the a.m. How did you handle the food situation and did they eat with other hens? Did you give the mom crumble too? Have you ever put chicks in in the a.m. because I want to be able to keep an eye on her? My hen has been sitting on nothing. Do I need to put a fake egg in first?

 

[Oregoncoastchick]

So many questions...did you leave them with the other hens? We don't keep food in house, but we put it in run in the a.m. How did you handle the food situation and did they eat with other hens? Did you give the mom crumble too? Have you ever put chicks in in the a.m. because I want to be able to keep an eye on her? My hen has been sitting on nothing. Do I need to put a fake egg in first?

This was my first time doing this so I have no idea on some of your questions haha. Yes we left her in with the other hens. As far as food goes we put a feeder with crumbles inside the coop, the big girl food is out in the run and too high to the babies to eat. All of the hens would occasionally snack on the crumbles. We didn’t keep any fake eggs under her but the last week we did let her keep 2 eggs every day. I think I would end up doing the same thing if we did it again. The one issue we had was with another of our hens bullying them. She ended up attacking one of the babies and she was hurt pretty badly but she recovered and is doing awesome now. I wish I would have trusted my instincts and separated that bully hen once I saw that she was not being very friendly. We ended up putting down that hen cause I can’t have that behavior in my flock.

 

[theoldchick]

Amazing!

 

[MommyGirl]

That’s great news on the adoption! She is such a beautiful momma!

 

[needmyzzz]

This was my first time doing this so I have no idea on some of your questions haha. Yes we left her in with the other hens. As far as food goes we put a feeder with crumbles inside the coop, the big girl food is out in the run and too high to the babies to eat. All of the hens would occasionally snack on the crumbles. We didn’t keep any fake eggs under her but the last week we did let her keep 2 eggs every day. I think I would end up doing the same thing if we did it again. The one issue we had was with another of our hens bullying them. She ended up attacking one of the babies and she was hurt pretty badly but she recovered and is doing awesome now. I wish I would have trusted my instincts and separated that bully hen once I saw that she was not being very friendly. We ended up putting down that hen cause I can’t have that behavior in my flock.

Thanks. I have a couple bully Wyandottes so not sure how it will go. The broody is the sweetest Buff Orpington but she has been getting mean since going broody. We may be trying this this weekend because it will be two weeks. Some say wait until 3 weeks and others say at least 2 weeks. Wish I knew what I was doing.