Hens ARE Incubators!

9 - Two Day Old Chicks

I don't have much to say about our Mama Hen, except she is one fine mom. First of all she took care of those eggs so well she had to be removed from the nest to eat and drink. Then once the chicks were born, she will not be distracted from their care. I have heard of other mom hens crushing chicks and abandoning them once they hatch, but the nature is strong in this one. It was tough to get pictures of the freshly hatched chicks as they were under a very protective mom, and if we removed the mom, we only had about 2 minutes before mom would freak out, and the excitement of mom being gone makes the chicks move around a lot, causing blurry pics.

We candled our eggs to find 9 viable ones, and they all hatched...except, on day two, we lost one of the chicks, leaving only 8. It was easy to notice, as mama hen moved all her chicks to the other side of the brooder box. After removing the dead chick from the area, she still wouldn't sit there for a couple of days. She settled in and we kept them in the garage for about 2 weeks. Then the weather broke and we took our brooder box out to the backyard. It took some adjustment for mom and babies to get used to the hustle and bustle of our backyard in the spring, lots of noises and we had a smokey fire going as we were burning yard waste. After some adjustment we let them roam around the yard to scratch around for the first time.

I must say its very different having a mama hen around the chicks. When you mail order them they are pretty attached to us humans. We provide the food and the entertainment when no mom is present. A mothered flock of chicks really don't want to hang out with humans very much, they don't eat out of our hand and really don't like being held.

Mother hen will scratch around for the chicks. If she finds a worm, or a pebble of something good to eat, she will not gobble it up. She will sort of toss it aside and the chicks will fight over it. They hover around mom's beak as she pecks and scratches and eat what she digs up for them.

Nick named the brown chick "Chewy"

I think its tough to get your hands on a broody hen, but if you have the means it seems a lot easier than hatching eggs in an incubator. I really didn't have to do much but make sure mama hen was safe and warm and fed...and she did and is doing the rest. The new chicks are out of the garage and living full time in my coop, and the laying hens are now in my 'summer' coop I just built, but that is a topic for another post.