Letting Hen Raise Chicks

[cheitz20]

I have a flock of six chickens that I got last spring, so they'll be a year old in March. We're thinking of getting a couple more chicks (maybe 2) in a few months and letting my buff orpington raise them. She's gone broody pretty frequently since she started laying eggs around Aug/Sept, and I hear the breed makes good mothers (she's also pretty high in the pecking order of our flock, so I doubt any of our other hens will try messing with the babies). I would let her hatch eggs but we can't own roosters where I live so I would have to get day-old sexed chicks.

I just wanted to come on here and ask for any tips for letting her raise them, since we definitely don't want to go through the whole brooder-in-the-house thing again, and she seems like she would be a good mom. I'm a little worried about her not accepting them since we'd get them at a few days old, so any tips on that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[FunClucks]

Search "Broody hen" on this site, and you should come up with a lot of threads and a few Articles that will help you learn a lot of tips and tricks!

Most of the time, if you let her sit for a few weeks, and she's committed, you can let her sit on fake eggs, then trade them out for chicks in the evening, and things will go well. Make sure she doesn't attack them, that she takes them for food and water within the day (feedstore chicks are already eating and drinking), and they know to go back under her when they're cold. Also, she should defend the chicks from the other chickens. Make sure the chicks won't get stuck anywhere or can follow the hen wherever she goes, and that there is water and food they can access and not get stuck in the containers. That's pretty much it.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Generally you shove them under her after she's been setting for a couple of weeks and you hope she takes them. Some will take anything and others won't so it's always risky to try, and you need to have a back up plan in case she starts to attack them.

 

[Farmgirl1878]

I’ve done this five times now. If you let your broody sit on wooden eggs for at least ten days, you can get day-old chicks and sneak them under her smoking hot fanny at least two hours after dark. I pick up chicks and keep them under the heat plate with plenty of food and water with electrolytes during that day. About an hour before you want to put them under momma, take the heat plate out of the box or whatever you have the chicks in and let them get a little chilly and cranky. You want them to be chirping when you put them under her. Make sure that all of the chicks are underneath her, then walk away. Don’t peek. I usually listen for five minutes or so then go back in the house and try to sleep. (It’s hard. You’ll worry all night.) Check on them in the morning like it’s a normal day. She should be fine, even if it’s her first time. I’ve had a GLW, a Cochin, and my speckled Sussex (twice) raise chicks right in the coop with the rest of the flock. My girls always use one of the nest boxes and have always been great mommas!

 

[Poppy Putentake]

I second what others have said. A few tips:

The hen doesn't need sit on eggs for a full 21 days before being ready for chicks. A hen with a strong broody tendency will be ready in a week or less. This seems to depend more on the breed and the individual hen than the duration of egg-brooding.

The hen you expect to go broody may not do so and some other hen may go broody instead. I suggest that maybe 2 or 3 weeks before you expect the chicks, you could put some fake eggs or golf balls in your nesting boxes and see which hens decide to sit on them. The time of year is important -- some or most hens will not go broody until April.

The state of "broodiness" in a hen is hormonally similar to lactation in mammals.

My ideal time for putting the chicks unde the hen is a couple of hours before dawn. I figure that's a little safer than if there is the whole night ahead. The other thing is that I can keep them in a mini-brooder for their first evening and make sure they have had plenty to eat and drink. Of course, evening works too and not everyone is as okay with getting up before dawn as I am.

If the hen is bonding with the chicks, they will have a two-way "conversation" of clucks from the hen and; first peeps, then trilling/purring, from the chicks.

The mini-brooder I use is based on the "mama heating pad" system.
(See here.) They have usually only spent less than a day in it, but once a hen I was hoping to use did not accept the chicks, and they were in there for the next few weeks. At least I already had it all set up.

If you have a separate small secondary coop, that would be the ideal place to rear chicks (with or without a broody hen). Also, an extra-large nesting box, maybe 20" x 20", is a good size for a hen with chicks. You can make a nesting box out of a cardboard box. (Add a 10" diameter circular opening and tape up the top.)

 

[PrettyBirdRocky]

Our buff Orpington, Mama, raised two clutches. Nothing beats witnessing a mama and chicks... However. We won't be doing it again as the chicks turned out feral AF! Lol! Like no joke, super Speedy Gonzalez feral! Lol wouldn't let you anywhere near them. We even handled them for the first couple weeks while Mama was in pen(within run/coop, have a thread on it somewhere, as Mama decided to go broody and stay broody entering winter)

Mama didn't have any issues integrating with flock- i think one squabble and it was all good.

You'll definitely get lots of good advice here since several let broodies hatch.

Good luck and always share photos! Lol

 

[Poppy Putentake]

Pretty Bird Rocky wrote,

Our buff Orpington, Mama, raised two clutches.... ...However. We won't be doing it again as the chicks turned out very feral... ...wouldn't let you anywhere near them....

Right, chicks reared by a hen don't get as much exposure to humans early on and are more likely to be skittish around humans. (The breed makes a difference also.)

One time, I was getting checks in early April instead of May, and my usual broody hen (a Wyandotte) just refused to go broody, I'm sure due to the earliness of the season. One of the chicks (a Plymouth Rock) grew up to be extremely tame with humans, but another (an Ameraucana) was less so.

Another time, I had lost the Wyandotte hen that was so good at rearing chicks, so I tried getting my other hens to go broody. An Ameraucana got to the point of sitting on fake eggs, but when I gave her chicks, she seemed to just not know what to do, and left them huddled alone in the nest, so they got reared in the "mama heating pad" brooder instead. That was my most recent batch of chicks and they are all relatively tame, but especially a Speckled Sussex.

 

[Farmgirl1878]

Lol, I spend so much time with my girls that the chicks usually are running right up to me! They’d rather climb on me than on Momma…

Even when they grow up!

I’m fortunate enough to be retired, so I can hang out with my feathered friends for hours at a time. And I do.

 

[PrettyBirdRocky]

Lol, I spend so much time with my girls that the chicks usually are running right up to me! They’d rather climb on me than on Momma…


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Even when they grow up!

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I’m fortunate enough to be retired, so I can hang out with my feathered friends for hours at a time. And I do.

My goal! Lol

To be out there for hours at a time. I can do so in the summer when work is low lol

 

[UpstateChickenDaddy]

So ya’ll answered a question of mine. I was planning on a separate mini coop and run for my broody hen to raise the babies. But a couple other things came up.

I wanted the momma to raise them. Seems more natural. But I also want them to not be scared of me or worse. Has anyone let momma raise them but also interact with them early on? Or is momma not all about that?

Then about roos. I understand it is usually a 50/50 thing cockerel to pullet ratio and most of the various techniques to try to predetermine by egg shape etc are wives tales. I worry about more roos. Is it easier for a younger roo to learn his place in the group than peer age roos? My guess is no