Do You Take Newborn Chicks Away From A Broody Hen??

[jthayerkatz]

DO YOU TAKE NEWBORN CHICKS AWAY FROM A BROODY HEN??

when the newborns hatch does the mother feed and care for the baby or do you need to intervene, and put the chick in a brooder?

 

[pdsavage]

The broody will show em where the food and water is...most mama hens do a great job...
Its one of the sweetest things to see a mama hen with her babies...

 

[GopherBoyFarms]

you can do it either way....we have done both.
for the longest time we would take the chicks and put them in the brooder. This last time we let Pretty Girl keep the 3 chicks she hatched. We moved her and the chicks into the garage for about a week and but her and the babies in an open pet taxi with food and water. then moved them in the taxi to the coop, her and the babys are doing great.....they are in with all the other chickens of all different sizes and ages, and 2 roosters.....it's been like this for 2-3 weeks now and I am going to do it like this more often, there is no integrating teen chickens into the flock this way... and the babys free range with Pretty Girl all day, and sleep with the flock every night....it's the neatest thing to watch!!! Now we have 2 more ladys sitting on 15 eggs each, and 15 in the gopherbator.

 

[kathyinmo]

you can do it either way....we have done both.
for the longest time we would take the chicks and put them in the brooder. This last time we let Pretty Girl keep the 3 chicks she hatched. We moved her and the chicks into the garage for about a week and but her and the babies in an open pet taxi with food and water. then moved them in the taxi to the coop, her and the babys are doing great.....they are in with all the other chickens of all different sizes and ages, and 2 roosters.....it's been like this for 2-3 weeks now and I am going to do it like this more often, there is no integrating teen chickens into the flock this way... and the babys free range with Pretty Girl all day, and sleep with the flock every night....it's the neatest thing to watch!!! Now we have 2 more ladys sitting on 15 eggs each, and 15 in the gopherbator.

The rest of the flock don't bother the babies? I thought they would??

 

[verlaj]

I left the chicks with my broody - and I think it's the greatest! My husband built a great broody pen that had part with solid sides and part with hardware cloth. Put that in our open-air coop where the other hens were, food and water inside, and let the momma bring the chicks out with the other hens when they were about 3-4 weeks old. The only problem was some fighting between the momma hen and one of the other hens - blood was drawn. This settled down after a couple of days.

These chicks were trouble free. No pasty bottoms, no fiddling with the lights to get the temperature in the brooder just right, no problems with pecking order - momma hen put a quick end to any disputes when they were little! The chicks are much more savvy than the mail-order chicks that I raised in a brooder. Plus, it has been a joy to watch the entire process, from the broody sitting on the eggs all the way to the day she cut the apron strings and left them on their own.

I hope to have a broody to hatch and raise chicks for me every year forevermore!

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

If your broody hen is a good mom, she'll keep the rest of the flock from harming the chicks.

Remember, hens have been introducing their chicks to their flocks for a long time. You shouldn't have any problems with introducing the new chicks to the flock. The broody will do that for you.

And I have to second the notion that IT IS SOOO CUTE!

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

My broody hatched 3 chicks last month. I got nervous (it was her first time; mine too) so I took them away. She was SO MAD! I promised her she could keep whatever else she hatched out and she had two more. Another hen jumped in to help her and the two of them did a really good job. Unfortunately we lost one; I believe a small hawk tried to get it and was scared off. It was too late but the other chick survived and is doing just fine. Haven't had any problems with the other hens bothering her or the chick and I never separated them at all. It's absolutely adorable to watch and I'm just sorry I didn't let her keep the other three. It's definitely the way to go.

 

[verlaj]

Here's a photo that shows a little bit of our setup for the hen with chicks in the coop. (The feeder is too high in the photo because I had removed the top of the pen to take photos.) We covered the whole open sided area with 1/4 inch hardware cloth to protect the chicks from snakes, which are prevalent in our area. We left the broody pen in the coop even after letting them merge with the flock, but had a door open at the end of the broody pen except at night. (Had "belts and suspenders" at night because I was paranoid about nighttime marauders.)

The hen nested at night in the solid-sided area with the chicks for weeks. Some of the chicks started roosting away from her before others. Eventually - about 6 weeks after the hatch - the hen started laying and started roosting with the other hens - the chicks were cut off and on their own!

 

[lavacaw]

Nope. The best way to raise them, IMHO, is to let the mama do her job. Her instincts are probably better than ours anyway. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

We like baby chicks!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
It depends on space and the personality of the individual chickens involved. The more space you have the less likely you are to have problems. That seems to be true about everything chickens.

A good broody will protect her chicks from the other members of the flock. If another chicken threatens her babies, a good mama will reprimand the offender. She normally only has to do this once or twice and the others learn to leave the babies alone. If you interfere while she is teaching the lesson, you make it harder on mama and she will have a harder time teaching the lesson. You'll note I said a good mama. Not all broodies make good mama's so it is possible to have problems. They are living animals.

Most of the time, the offender is another hen. A good rooster will defend all members of his flock. There have been cases where a rooster looks after chicks if something happens to the mama or she abandons them too early, going so far as to keep them warm. That's a bit extreme and not really normal, but it does happen. And not all roosters are good flock masters.

I personally think chicks raised with the flock develop better immunities and have less severe integration issues later. Mama takes care of the severe integration issues for them. They will still have to sort out the pecking order on their own as they mature, but I feel the dangers of that are much less than the dangers of integrating young chickens with the existing flock.

I will mention that others quite successfully do it other ways. It is a personal decision, based on your philosophy and set-up.