mother and chicks

Hello! I have a mother hen (Cochin bantam, first time mom) who hatched 3 chicks (they are 4 weeks old now). They were separated from the flock for the first week and then gradually introduced back with little field trips, except they slept separately. Yesterday was the first day I had mama...

Hello! I have a mother hen that is taking care of 3 chicks. They hatched 2 weeks ago today, and she’s been with them in a pen ever since. The first week, she was content with sitting with them; but as of the past week, she’s itching to get out. I would put her out, but as soon as she’s away...

Hello! I have a mother hen (Cochin bantam) with three week old chicks. She acts fine, doing her job well, and her poops look perfectly normal, but I noticed today right after she took a drink of water, she spit it all up and sneezed. I only saw her do this once before the day after the chicks...

Hen being housed indoors just hatched 4 chicks yesterday and they are so small they can only eat crumbs. I would just give them chick feed, but mum is eating the same food & I don't want her to get an upset stomach from it. Saw someone saying they just crush regular feed to chick size, so i...

Logically I know that there’s very little that could’ve been and even less that I can do now. My main suspicion is that something got the poor little guy. If he had been sick or injured, the hen would’ve stayed with him. If he were stuck, he would be chirping and the hen would be with him...

hello! i’m in kind of a specific situation here- i have a young quail couple who are both very sweet and not once have been violent to each other or any other thing around, the hen had been sitting on a clutch of eggs for about 18 days but the male is a rescue and i’m pretty sure he’s infertile...

Hello, I'm very worried right now, my cochin hen won't accept her own chick, it's her Own, not a foreign one, she keeps pecking it on the head when it comes too close to her face, and now I don't know what to do. Raise the chick alone without the mum with a heat lamp? I don't know how to do that...

Hi all new to this site as member but have used it frequently for all my chicken queries. So we have a flock of 10 females and one male and one hen (Beverley) is currently sitting on eggs which are hatching as we speak, the eggs Beverley is sitting on are not solely hers, our flock decided...

one of our chicks is getting constantly attacked. we have four 6 week old chicks that our broody hen hatched (they are not her eggs we don’t have any roosters i’m not sure that matters though). i’m pretty sure two are roosters and the other two are hens based off colors and behavior. one of the...

Hi everyone! What’s your ‘go-to’ chicken when you want a broody hen in your flock? Yes incubators are great but mama hen is my preference when I have a choice!! I know silkies are renowned broodies but I’m just wondering what your favourite breeds or particular cross breeds are to use as...

2 of my 3 hens went broody and now co-raise 5 chicks. All my hens are different breeds and so I can see which chick biological belongs to who. All the chicks belong to the 2 parenting hens, who both lay white eggs. However, the other hen's brown eggs were in the nest too, in fact two hatched but...

You can't really see the chicks but what I got was: 1 Black sex link, 1 Buff Orpington, and 1 Mille fleur d'uccle bantam. It's Mouse's 3rd year raising chicks. In case you're wondering what breeds she's mixed of: Bantam silkie/cochin

Hi, my broody bantam Nellie is usually such a gentle, patient and competent mother...she successfully raised a chick that wasn’t hers last spring. She showed broody signs again this spring so last weekend I got her a bantam chick and slipped it under her and she took right to it. Sadly a couple...

Juniper, our Olive Egger, really wanted to become a mother so on Saturday I bought 4 baby chicks from our local feed store. 2 Red Sex Links, 1 Barred Rock, and 1 Black Australorp. We actually got the Black Australorp by mistake because they were in with the Barred Rocks but I love it already...

i had a hen go broody and was looking to expand my flock, so I ordered 2 fayoumi chicks, 1 black Sumatra, 1 buff orphington, all female, and a partridge rock male, I put them under her, and it well, but the chicks are only 4.5 weeks old, and the mom is already chasing them off, is that normal?

Mouse, our Bantam Cochin/Silkie mix had gone broody 10 days ago and I had already planned on getting Crested Polish chicks so it was perfect timing. I picked them up yesterday and allowed them to settled in before I did anything. Mouse's cage was next to theirs so she saw them. When I had first...

My female duck just recently hatched some ducklings. She has been extremely broody during the whole process, and isn’t that fond of interaction with people as it is. I would like to hold the ducklings and get them used to being around people, so that they are a bit friendlier than she is once...

I need some input. I have a broody hen with (her babies) about two weeks old in one brooder in our basement. She's a very good mom to her babies and teaching them the ropes. I have another brooder with about 30 day old chicks that we hatched from our incubator. The Mother Hen in the other...

Hello everyone, i was just womdering if hens will recognize their chicks their whole lifes, will a hen always always be nicer to a chicken if it is her chick, and will they still be friendly and close for the rest of their lives?. thanks for your help and answers!.