Has anyone had hens co parent chicks before?

[Jtaranc]

Ive had a few broody mamas that I let sit on eggs for the hell of it. The first mom, a BCM hatched 3 babies. Shes a wonderful mom. Those 3 are a week ahead of the next batch.

Then my blue splash and porcelain d'uccle went broody. I let them have 2 eggs each, they all hatched within a day or 2 of one another.

The moms seemed confused everyone was hatching at the same time. So I have 4 baby chicks that both moms are raising. They go on walks together. They both talk to the babies. The 2 hens sit touching each other with the chicks under them.

I havent intervened because the hens are not fighting or being pushy with the chicks. The chicks act like they have 2 moms and just go with it.

 

[Perris]

it's not uncommon; first time for my flock last year, and it went well, as it seems to have done for others who had co-brooding hens. There are quite a few advantages over normal single broody raising I found, e.g. each hen can get a bit of down time for self care while the other one does the heavy lifting, chicks and broodies less likely to get anxious when attempting to climb a ramp (because one hen at the top showing the way and the other at the bottom with the stragglers) etc. Enjoy! and congrats on a sweet family.

 

[Altairsky]

It happened to me.
I had only 2 hens back then. One (the sub one) went broody and I gave her a few fertilized eggs to hatch.
When the chicks hatched and the dominant hen saw them, she also went broody (doing the clucking and all) but never sat on any egg, instead she co-parented the chicks of her sister. The chicks acted like they had 2 moms.
When the sub hen weaned the chicks, the dominant kept looking after them (they basically got babied for 4 months! then I sold them).

 

[Fluffbuttnewbie]

Yep, I have 2 splash Astrolorps, one has been broody for 6 weeks when the second one went broody. So I gave both of them 3 eggs each. While they were sitting, they swapped and moved eggs constantly. Sometimes one will sit on all, sometimes it'll be 2 and 4, sometimes 1 and 5 and sometimes they'll go back to 3/3. It was like musical chairs, by hatch day, I had no idea what eggs were under each or how many. On Thursday, they sucessfully hatched 4 out 6 eggs. Then lo and behold, our TS got a new shipment of the chicks I wanted, so I got 4 little ones and put them in the coop as well. So, now we have 2 hens and 8 babies, who don't seem to really know who their "mother" is. They use both hens as a jungle gym and crawl under whichever one is closer. I guess we'll see how it goes from here, but so far, it is a total peace and calm in their little coop.