Natural breeding thread

[MysteryChicken]

My first ever chick hatches were through broody hens. Of course there were the success, & the disasters that follows.

But now I got incubators, so I can decide between hatching with broody hens, or hatch with a machine.

 

[Skyeknight]

Chicks hatched by a mother are already part of the flock. My flock will help raise chicks all together if I let them hatch.

This is very true. If possible I think it's best to leave the new mother with the flock. Chickens are social creatures and more often than not the flock would probably raise the chicks together. I don't know exactly how this works in red junglefowl, but I do know of other bird species that live in groups that help their parents raise their siblings instead of procreating themselves. The Seychelles warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis) is an example of this.

Yet some hens do hatch and raise donations be they very young chicks or eggs from other hens.

Eggs I can kinda understand if it hatched underneath them. But I mean there are cases of birds sitting on rocks, so maybe if it looks kinda similar to an egg they will just think it's an egg.

I know that with sheep they mainly recognise their lambs by smell and if you want them to accept a lamb that isn't their own you should wash the lamb in the amniotic fluid of that sheep. They will accept lambs of a different colour, I myself have seen this method fail with sheep that are escape artists (problem solvers). Maybe chickens also focus on a specific sense. To me sound is the more obvious choose since chickens talk to their chicks when they are still in the egg. Chickens that accept already hatched chicks could just be "dumb" so to speak. One note though since chickens are a domesticated species some things might have accidently been bred out in the domestication process. But I don't know enough about chicken to conclude as to why, these are all just my own hypotheses.

Conclusion:
- Chickens will readily accept eggs that aren't their own and have a different colour, shape or size.
- Chickens won't readily accept already hatched chicks. Chickens that do should be treated as an exception. With a lot of effort and depending on the character of the chicken it might work. But I wouldn't advise this.

As to not derail this thread too much. This will be the last I say of it. If you have actual answers or sources PM me.

 

[BDutch]

Chicks hatched by a mother are already part of the flock. My flock will help raise chicks all together if I let them hatch.

Sort of yes. It’s easier to integrate for sure. Being part of the flock doesn’t mean the chicks wont get pecked. The mother often needs to protect her chicks, and with many chicks and little space she can have a though job.

My experience: Flock mates are sometimes nice and even co-raise. Flock mates can be very mean too , especially when food is involved. A peck on the head to tell the chick it has to wait until the adult has finished is normal. But I have seen flock mates who get mean , annoyed or bossy too, pecking hard or chasing the little ones.

Because of not so nice behaviour that occurred in my flock I prefer to integrate the mother(s) with their chicks when they are about 10 -14 days old. Within 2 weeks the mother and chicks gain a lot of strength. Mothers are more capable to defend , chicks are less vulnerable and quicker.

 

[Altairsky]

Sort of yes

True, I forgot to specify, as I stated earlier, that natural breeding works best in natural flocks, so big spaces, free range, and 1:4 rooster to hens ratio. Overcrowding and lack of control from a good dad can cause disasters.

 

[Perris]

Broody: intending/wanting to sit and hatch.
A sitting hen. Not really broody any more. We don't seem to have a word for it but it's the chicken version of pregnant.
Once chicks have hatched. No longer broody. The hens a mother now.

do you have a source for this very restrictive definition of broody? My Chambers, for example, says 'adj. broody, inclined to sit or incubate; apt to brood or breed. OE brod; Du broed; cf. breed.' Breeding isn't just confined to laying and incubating eggs; it's about getting the chicks to maturity.

 

[Perris]

Does anyone have experience with a broody killing their first born and how you handled it?

And did you allow her to brood again and how that went?

8 of my 10 last year were first timers. I had 2 separate broodys that killed their first born. I was fortunate that I had other broodys setting to hatch the same day both times, so I pulled the eggs from both of these and slipped under another broody and then had to break the 2. This was a first for me and just didn't know what to do and time is of the essence here so I hastily made that judgement call to save the remaining chicks about to hatch and not risk other deaths if any hatched while I wasn't out there.

I'd like to try them again this year if they go broody again and curious if others have been in this situation and let more hatch. I have read that some hens are just sitters and get confused when chicks appear.

An interesting footnote...
Every broody I have does 'soft clucks' at the eggs right around pip and zip time. And I spend most of my day checking in on the broody on hatch day (hands off mostly but excited for the hatch) mainly just to make sure she's taken to the chicks.

But I noticed with both of these 2, they did not do this and it didn't really 'click' in my mind until later. An after thought....

I've done a bit of digging on this, and come up with something that may be relevant or at least interesting.

It's called intraspecific egg or chick killing, and it was recognized already in the 1990s in some species where there were chances that eggs and chicks could get mixed up (note the similarity with chickens sharing nest boxes). If the egg or chick is also eaten it is a variety of predation. The explanation for it at the time (Cambridge encyclopaedia of ornithology 1991: 274) was eggs or chicks getting into the wrong nest *or* (and this I think may be relevant) as a result of it being recognised as someone else's. "In virtually all colonial species studied, where there is a risk of eggs getting mixed up, either within the breeding colony or within creches, adults and offspring are able to recognize each other in some way." Could your broodies have attacked chicks that hatched from eggs laid by other hens?

 

[Perris]

I've found something a bit more recent than 1991 on bird parenting in general which speaks to some of the issues raised so far.

Parenting strategies in birds vary from fierce protection to complete neglect. Female only care (as per chickens) is relatively rare (about 8% of all bird species do this) and is most common in birds with abundant food supplies. Chicks that have no parental guidance have a very poor survival rate, e.g. only 3% of brush turkeys survive the first week.

Interspecific parenting (fostering the young of a different species) has been observed in a variety of breeds and places and is unexplained. Favoured hypothesis by the source of this info (Ackerman The bird way 2020 chapter 12) is that the parents in question couldn't resist the call of hungry young; interspecific nurturing is simply testament to the powerful pull of parenting for some. Other hypothesis are using it as practice, or simple confusion by the parent. Some explanations fit some cases better than others.

 

[Shadrach]

'adj. broody, inclined to sit or incubate;

No I don't have a study on a strict definition of the word broody. The word "inclined" kind of covers it don't you think.

Inclined
you're likely to do something, you're leaning toward doing it, or you do it habitually.
Nothing about actually doing it
One wouldn't describe a mother of a newborn child as broody would one? So, why would one describe a chicken mother as such.

So, I think it's a fair split into getting prepared to do something (hatch eggs in the chickens case) and sitting, (debatable) and being a mother (task already achieved, intention carried out).

I can't see any reason to apply a different meaning to the word broody just because a chicken is the subject.

I find it's easier to delineate each stage. It helps to understand the various physical and one must assume, psychological, changes the hen undergoes.
The behaviour of a broody hen and a sitting hen is rather different. There's that inconvenient trance state when sitting which we understand very little about.

Broodiness starts long before one sees the puffed up hen I would suggest. It's just that many humans have difficulty accepting that a hen, or any chicken come to that, is capable of planning.

 

[Perris]

I can't see any reason to apply a different meaning to the word broody just because a chicken is the subject.

the word comes from birds - the broody patch, brood parasites - and is applied to women, so I think you've got it the wrong way round.

 

[Shadrach]

the word comes from birds - the broody patch, brood parasites - and is applied to women, so I think you've got it the wrong way round.

Possibly so but that doesn't change the point I'm trying to make.