Broody hen and her chicks

[ducks4you]

My broody hen hatched out 2 chicks a week ago, and is sitting on more eggs. The other hen and their shared rooster are all one, happy flock. Though I'd share.

She nested outside of their house, so I gave her a lean-to to keep them dry. Here's the nest.

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

So cute! Congrats on your new flock!

 

[897tgigvib]

Hay! Those are eggs on the ground!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Congratulations. I use an incubator too but there is just something about a broody with chicks. Anytime one of mine goes broody, she gets eggs. I don't care how many chickens I already have or the time of year.

I did not go as natural as you but had a broody hatch in the coop. It's hard to get them to pose, they just want to run away, but here are my broody and her 11 chicks at about two weeks old.

 

[ducks4you]

natural--ha, ha!!
This was my turkey house enclosure, ~ 8' x 13'. We ate the turkeys in 2010, but separated this year's flocks bc our friend gave us his roosters, and we had to separate them. Here is my hen's rooster.

He disappears into the forest so much, it's hard to get a good shot of him. I think he's a real beauty. The pen had grown up with weeds, which I thought they would eat and tamp down. INSTEAD, it turned into a forest. THAT really helped with the oppressive heat this past summer, since they had so much shade.

 

[catjac1975]

Many years ago we had gone to Florida for a month's vacation with our 3 young children. We arrived home very early in the morning to the site of a hen walking across the lawn with 15 chicks behind her. We found her nest in the woods with many more than had not made it. What a site to behold.
Tours are soooo cute!

 

[baymule]

Awwwww........ what a sweet family!!

 

[lesa]

I look forward to the day when I can have a rooster...another thing for the wish list at the "someday" farm! There is something so utterly touching about motherhood. Enjoy your new babies! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

congrats. i had a pullet go broody on me a few weeks ago and i gave her about a dozen eggs. my hens added a few to the pile afterwards but i got momma moved into a cat carrier and removed the door so the larger hens would be deterred from trying to lay in there with her. when we moved to the new coop her carrier got put in a large metal dog crate and i didin't think about the bars being wide enough for a chick to sneak through.

this week i started to hear peeping. momma is happy but i'm not after some of the results. 6 chicks hatched over the course of a week. but each day i went out to find a chick looking like it was struggling to dry off and get moving just to come home from work to find that it had been dragged out by the other hens and killed. one momma crushed. the worst part is that the ones that died were all colors which i was hoping to hatch-blue, black and a chipmunk color that i haven't seen pop up in my flock on it's own. i can tell one chick that survived is going to be white but the other one i have to grab and take a good look at the feathers to be sure.

from now on i'm going to be watching that girl to be sure she isn't hurting the chicks as they're hatching. there are 5 more eggs in with her that i think may still hatch. i have my suspicions that she started hurting them and the other hens just finished the job.

eta: momma has 2 chicks that have survived so far and have been moved to a safer location from the other hens and roos.

 

[catjac1975]

I had not idea that the hens would kill the chicks. WHy not take them away and put them in a box with a light bulb? I have chicks in a brooder that's in the chicken yard. The hens are constantly gathered about to get a look at them-never thought they might hurt them!