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Post by nana on Jun 9, 2019 20:29:40 GMT -5
I had a couple hens go broody this spring, and while a few days in the slammer served to break one hen, the other just would not give up. She would turn the food dish upside down and set on that. I figured if she wanted motherhood so bad, I ought to accommodate her so I went to my neighbor who has hens AND roosters and got a dozen fertile eggs. I set the hen up in a little separate hutch with 8 of the biggest eggs and she got down to some serious incubating. And we had awful weather this spring. Cold, windy and rainy. But she persevered and this past Wednesday she hatched out 5 adorable puffballs. (A week after I gave her the eggs, 2 went missing. I read that somehow the mother can sense if they are "duds" and will either push them out of the nest or eat them, so they don't go rotten, explode and contaminate the others. She must have eaten them, because there was no sign of them, not even shells. And one poor baby started hatching, but never made it out of the shell.) Anyway, today marks 5 days since they hatched, and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with when the mom will want to rejoin the flock. I tried opening the door to her little pen to see if she would walk out, but what happened was all the other chickens crammed in to see what was going on, and the mama went ballistic, and in all the kerfuffle I was worried the babies would get trampled, so I grabbed the other chickens back out of there and slammed the door. But I'd like to reintegrate her as soon as possible, so I can stop having to fill two feeders and two waterers every day. For sure I can say that it is so much easier and more fun to let mama do it that having the chicks in a brooder. She seems to be a really good mom, and the babies seem so much smarter and calmer than hatchery chicks. Which makes sense, because they don't have to figure everything out for themselves, they have a teacher! But how long will she want to keep them separate from the rest of the flock? PS. In the background of the picture you can see the legs and bottoms of a few of the other hens. They seem to be fascinated by the little ones.
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Post by chipperhiker on Jun 9, 2019 22:26:07 GMT -5
Hey, nana!
Last year I let one of my broodies hatch out a clutch of eggs. I took her and her eggs out of the main coop, where her friends kept jumping into her nest with her and crushing her eggs, and put them into a small prefab "baby coop" I keep for young ones.
I kept them isolated in their own coop for about 2-3 weeks, and then I let them start free ranging, so they could mingle at will with the whole flock. Mama defended them and she generally kept them out of the thick of the main flock and in a different part of the yard, so I just let her take the lead on how to integrate her little ones. Every night Mama returned with them to the baby coop. One evening, somewhere around 6 weeks after hatch, she simply took herself back to the "big kids" coop, and left her babies behind in the baby coop. It was incredibly abrupt, but it worked out well.
After that I let them all range together in the daytime, but gave them separate quarters at night because the Bigs tended to beat up the Littles. Perch space wars...
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Post by pooka on Jun 10, 2019 4:14:19 GMT -5
I guess it's that old pecking order thing that they have to work out on their own. That terms is so ubiquitous, we forget it's an actual thing. Social hierarchy is something creatures great & small have to work out in their own time.
chipperhiker, sound like you've got a good plan of attack. Give them a safe haven to retreat to if need be until they learn their place in the flock. If she's a good mom, she'll keep them on a long leash, but ultimately, they'll have to find their own way in the world one way or another. Darwin will have his way in time, so you just have to let it happen.
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Post by nana on Jun 10, 2019 20:30:56 GMT -5
OK, so 5 days was a bit too early. I guess I will have to be patient! That's kind of the set up I have now, with a separate little hutch and run within the larger chicken yard. When you started letting them free range, do you mean at large in the wide world, or free to roam within the confines of the chicken yard? I have a big chicken yard, certainly big enough for them to keep out of harm's way, and I suppose once the novelty wears off the big girls won't be so eager to check out the hutch. I was doing some online research and when the reintegration happens the consensus seems to be to have a little creep feeder, or some kind of food and water supply that is only accessible to the young ones, which I made by re-purposing the chicken jail by putting slats across the opening 2 3/4 inches apart. I've been giving them greens and weeds and treats in their pen and really enjoying watching the mom call her little ones over to eat, while the other ladies are of course eating their kishke out with jealousy. If the pieces are too big for them, she actually will bite off chunks and drop them for the babies.
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Post by chipperhiker on Jun 11, 2019 21:55:26 GMT -5
Aren't chickens the best mamas?!?! I loved watching my mother hen prep food for her babies. It was incredibly sweet.
I'm trying to remember specifics, because it kind of evolved on a day to day basis... I had to go back to my photos to get a more accurate picture:
Revised timeline:
At 2-3 weeks they were out in a pen that was attached to the baby coop, so they had free access to dirt and AYCE grass and bugs. Once they started hopping over the short 2 foot fence, I let them out all day long. That took maybe an additional week, but by 4 weeks they were out to free range all day with Mama, with no confinement at all. I have a lot of space for them to roam. Mama and babies all went back to their private coop at night, and she tended to keep them in a different part of the yard from the main flock.
When I've raised chicks without a mama hen, I don't let them start to free range until about 6-7 weeks, as they don't have their own security hen on duty.
I do the creep feed thing, too. I prop the little coop door open only far enough that the chicks can get in, and the Biggies are excluded. Usually. Today I had to chase out one of last year's babies who squeezed in.
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Post by nana on Jun 12, 2019 19:41:35 GMT -5
I wish I could let them truly free range, but my and my neighbors gardens would not appreciate it...Some of my hens are true escape artists, but once they get out they tend to fret when they realize they are apart from the flock. My girls have a fenced in chicken run bigger than some people's yards, with trees and bushes for cover, but except for the daylilies which apparently they don't like, every other bit of vegetation has long since been gobbled up. They do have a compost corner, where my neighbor and I both dump all our compostable stuff, my other neighbor brings them her scraps (They LOVE her--she never eats the end slices of bread!) and every summer I do my little land grab and temporarily fence in the bit of the firemen's field behind my back fence and they get to eat fresh weeds and fertilize the raspberries that escaped from my yard at the same time. So they have it pretty good.
The babies are growing well, a week old, they are starting to get wing and tail feathers and scoot around like little water bugs. They had a red letter day today. I picked up an old board that was lying on the ground and found it was infested with termites, so I put it in the little family's pen along with a couple shovelfuls of dirt full of the nasty little buggers from where the board was. You should have seen them scratching and snapping up those termites!
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Post by nana on Jun 27, 2019 17:37:24 GMT -5
Today was 3 weeks and a day since hatching, so I opened up the door to the nursery pen to see what would happen.(Last week I tried, but mama wasn't ready to leave and the big girls all came crowding in to investigate and the mama went ballistic on them and I was afraid the babies would get trampled in the kerfuffle and I had to crawl in there and yank the big girls out by their tail feathers!) Anyway, today mama walked on out, giving me a look like it's about time. The babies followed her, and there was one incident when a big girl tried to peck at one of the babies and mama knocked her right on her big fluffy chicken butt and after that everyone kept a respectful but interested distance. My problem is, the babies can walk through the fence that surrounds the big chicken yard like it wasn't even there. The nursery pen is hardware cloth, but it would be nearly impossible, plus too expensive to retrofit the big fence. The babies were loving the fresh grass and bugs they were finding, but mama being stuck behind the fence means they are vulnerable to cats, hawks, etc. I think what I have to do is only let them out late in the evening when I can sit and watch them, but mama will call them in to go to bed after an hour or so until they get big enough to not fit through the fence anymore. Every solution leads to a new problem, I guess! But this has been a very rewarding experience so far. Much easier than brooding them myself!
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Post by chipperhiker on Jun 28, 2019 0:12:43 GMT -5
What about temporarily adding some kind of mesh to the bottom few inches of the fence? Maybe window screen, or something along those lines?
I'm so glad that you are enjoying your little brood. When mine were little, I could have watched them all day long. Chickens are such amazing Mamas. This year I got babies from Runnings, again, so i had to do the indoor brooding thing again. I do notice that my human-brooded chicks are friendlier/more at ease with me, but having a broody hen is just a wonderful experience.
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Post by nana on Jun 28, 2019 7:53:49 GMT -5
Adding mesh would do the trick, but I would need probably about 100 yards to go all the way around everything what with the land grab and all, and fight my way through raspberriy bushes, prickly evergreens, and uneven ground...it's just too expensive and daunting. They'll just have to be patient and grow some more.
I do notice that having a mama means they are not oriented towards me the way hand reared chicks are. But every time I bring treats to them in their pen I call "Here chickie chickie chickie," which is what I always do with hand reared ones, so even though they don't let me pick them up, they know to come when I call. That little bit of training has helped immeasurably when trying to corral escapees over the years! Just make sure you have something good to give them when they come, to make the return to confinement worth it for them!
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Post by nana on Jul 1, 2019 14:10:02 GMT -5
I kept thinking about the mesh idea, and I figured I must have about enough scraps of stuff lying around to make it all the way around, and whaddaya know, I did except for the last 20 feet! My original chicken fence was black plastic 1" netting, replaced when it inevitably got holes here and there (Thanks to my son in law and his weed whacker), but I still had some usable sections squirreled away, along with random lengths of chicken wire and hardware cloth. It took me two days and about a thousand(or so it seemed!) twist ties, but I finally got the entire perimeter covered. The hardest part was squatting down and wiring the bottom down tight, so they can't slip under, all while the big chickens were helpfully pecking my fingers and grabbing the twist ties. It's an ugly job, but it only has to keep chicks in for a month or so until they size up!
The fence that I bought was 2 foot high plastic 1" garden fence, a bit stiffer than the netting I had, and MUCH easier to work with. If I ever do this again, I will bite the bullet and buy enough to do the whole thing. I'm cheap, but sometimes you're just better off spending a bit.
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Post by chipperhiker on Jul 1, 2019 23:06:07 GMT -5
Nice job, nana!!! Your babies will be very happy to wander.
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