First time raising chicks with mama hen and need advice

Hi there!

We have a little backyard coop and when one of our hens went broody a month ago, we decided to pick up some fertilized eggs from a nearby farm and put them under her (about a week after she started sitting). The coop/nesting box is 2-3 feet off of the ground and I just realized that the chicks will probably not be able to safely go up and down the ramp.

I'm wondering if I should try to set up a wire dog crate, or something else, on the ground under the coop. I could leave the door open so that they can come and go when they are ready. And if I do this, should I move her before or after the chicks come? They are due Wednesday/Thursday of this week!!

Any advice about this or anything else concerning raising chicks with the mama hen would be very much appreciated! Thank you!

Hi Nikki,
Welcome to Permies!

I only have a little experience raising chicks that way, but mine were on the ground. I don't think it is as big of an deal as we sometimes think it is. I have heard of chicken mothers actually have the chicks sit on their backs and hopping them back up to the nest. As long as there is something fairly soft (straw or sawdust) I don't suspect the chicks will get too hurt from the fall.

A ramp would probably work fine, you might get one or two that fall off the side, but I think they would figure it out pretty quick.

The mother might move them herself if she thinks its not ideal.

And lastly, I would not move the nest with the eggs so close to hatching. If you felt the need you could seal her in with some screen or something until 24 hours after the chicks hatch, and then move them to a different spot.

Thank you, Matt!

I thought I’d post some pics of the ramp so you all could judge how treacherous or not treacherous it might be for chicks. It is pretty steep.

Hi Nikki,
I can't promise you that it will be fine, but those chicks are pretty fiesty pretty quickly. They can jump up high enough to land on their mother at 24 hours old. I think they could figure out that ramp, even though it is steep. That is my gut feeling, but chickens, like people have generalities and individualities.

Howdy Nikki!
Welcome to Permies!

I'm sorry I wasn't able to get back to you before this but I hope I have caught you before anything unfortunate happened.

Yes, you can (and maybe should) move the hen into a dog crate. There are some caveats, of course, but she should make the move just fine.
Chicks can survive falls from pretty scary heights, but it isn't the best thing for them. They are also amazingly mobile and able to jump very impressive distances within a few hours of hatching. If there's any chance of them ending up doing something unfortunate, as a chicken keeper, I figure it's my duty to try to protect them. or at least have options available for Mom.

Caveats - try to move her at night. Make sure you have everything set up so you can shift her to her new situation with a minimum of fuss. I have moved a hen and chicks into a box and then into a prepared tote, so you can do multiple moves in a single event, but ... make it simple for your own peace of mind. Moving her at night makes it easier on both of you. You are less likely to have a defensive chicken attack, and she's more likely to want to sleep. Chickens will accept most changes much better if you do them after dark and quickly.

Next caveat - make sure the chicks can't fit through the wire of the dog crate. Moving her into a dog crate is something that several people here, on Permies, do. I don't have a wire dog crate, but have had similar results with the large plastic shelled versions (which I have a lot of ). She will need access to food and water, a place for her nest, and some space to move around. It doesn't have to be large, just about three or four times the length of the hen. Maybe more, maybe less. Chickens are flexible.
 
 You can move her whenever you think she needs moved. I tend to leave broody hens alone if they aren't getting really bothered by the others, but will try to move hens with new chicks as soon as possible. I have had just about every type of chicken mom from the wildly attentive and adorably maternal to the stand-offish and kind of insane. I have a hen who loves to brood but doesn't want chicks! I have a hen who will raise her own chicks but not anything else, and one who hatched and raised a goslings. Your hen's personality towards motherhood will be evident pretty quickly.

So, if you have a space you can put her where she is protected from predators and she can have all the good things, I would move her this evening, just to give her a chance to settle before the eggs hatch unless they've already hatched. If they've already hatched, then ...
Welcome to the wonderful world of Baby Chick Care!

Feed mom and chicks a chick feed. The extra protein will be fine for her and the chicks will need the boost. You can feed chopped hardboiled egg and/or a bunch of other chick friendly things. You will know within a short time what kind of chicken mom you have. If she attacks the chicks for any reason, get them away from her and raise them yourself. If she seems baffled by the little peepers, but otherwise doesn't seem to care, she'll be fine. It can take a few days before she'll be ready to abandon the nest and all the eggs that might hatch do hatch.
There's a whole long conversation about what things can go wrong with hatching eggs, but that's not important.

You got this! Taking care of chicks, or a Chicken Mom and Family is easy! Make sure she has appropriate food and clean water, soft bedding, a place to move a little. and protection from the elements. She and you will be fine!

Thank you, Kristine! So much good information here! I'm going to try and move her as soon as the chicks hatch. It is a relief to hear that chicks are hardier than they look.

I have a question about moving mama hen and babes. So I was just going to keep the dog crate open on the floor of the coop's run. I planned to leave the door of the crate open so that she and the chicks can just eat and drink with the rest of the flock. Do you think that, instead, the crate should be closed so that she and the chicks are kept separate from the others? If so, for about how long should she/they be separated?

I'm glad to help and glad you found useful information in my comment.
And welcome to the adventure!!

Please close the crate door once your hen and her family are inside.
The whole point of putting her into the crate is to give her separation from the rest of the flock. Non-maternal hens *will* kill chicks that aren't theirs. To keep mom and chicks safe, she does need a "safe space" absent other chickens.

Once you and she have experience, or you have a bit of experience and can tell what kind of mom your have and can act to do what's necessary, sure. Experiment. I have hens who don't need to be separated from the flock and others who need their Safe Space ASAP, generally during brooding. I've learned how to tell which are which and get them to where they need to be.

I have a hen-raised hen who had her family out with the rest of the flock. Because her mom raised her, I wasn't overly concerned about her ability to set, once she made up her mind, and mother the chicks. She did lose most of them to one thing or another - it's a problem with chicken moms and tiny, very edible, balls of peep. She has one chick, right now. A very noisy pullet who has just started getting her colors.

If you aren't ready for chicks to die from really stupid situations, then find a safe spot and keep her in it until the chicks are a couple of weeks old and have the brains of a cotton ball. Trust me on this.
I've gotten into trouble for saying things like "chickens will find the most outlandish way to die and throw themselves at it repeatedly". It's even worse with chicks.
After a couple of weeks, they will have gone through the most common of all the possible congenital, environmental, and local hazards. If they were going to die from something immensely frustrating, they'll do it in the first two weeks. After that time, feel free to open the door to the crate and let your Momma Hen join the rest of the flock.

Small bowls are fine for water and/or food. The chicks will take a couple of days to learn how to use their feet and might be dashing through the food and water, so try to find sturdy ones that can put up with a few chicken shenanigans. A little bedding or newspaper or paper towel or ... in the bottom of the crate (something you don't mind getting chicken poop on) and the food and water and you're set. I have used old plastic margarine/cut down yogurt and cottage cheese containers, small cooking bowls, egg separating bowls, dog and cat food bowls, ... it really doesn't matter. The food can just be put in a spot where Mom can see it.

Mom will start to get upset and will start pacing when she wants to join the flock. She won't abandon the chicks, but will pace and cluck and just act like a toddler needing a potty. If there's a space where you can let her work her way back into the flock, you can watch the dance as she tries to balance protecting her chicks with All The Things she wants to go do.  It should be about a week or so after hatching, though she might get restless before that. It really depends on the hen.

I would move her this evening, just to give her a chance to settle before the eggs hatch unless they've already hatched.

@Kristine,
I would be worried about moving eggs that are about to be hatched, with the assumption that it would be safer to move after they hatch. You wouldn't worry about the eggs rolling or being bumped accidentally in the process?

That's part of having a prepared container for transport and to move her, and her family with her.

As long as you are calm, gentle with the eggs, careful with how you handle and put them in a spot they aren't likely to roll much, you should be fine.
I wouldn't let a young child help with that part. There's a level of hand-eye coordination, control over movements, and a gentleness that's necessary.

I have successfully moved eggs that were in the process of hatching.
I once moved an egg I thought had broken. I was astonished when I found a very chilled and angry chick on my kitchen counter!
I've also moved the egg of a chick that was opening. I carried that one in my hand so it got some warmth and I could be certain it wasn't getting knocked about unnecessarily.
Just treat it like anything else that's fragile and can be broken.

If I have to move a hen and eggs before putting them in a tote (I use large totes with a hardware cloth cover for brooding hens and when I brood chicks), I put a old towel ("dog" towels) in the bottom of the transport box. That way there's a soft place for the eggs to nestle and the hen will settle on them.

After I put the hen and eggs on top of the towel, I close the lid (darkness helps to calm her) and carry the box to her new home, then shift them inside the container. If I have to put her in a tote, I pre-make a "nest" out of bedding and softer grasses or an old towel. If you use something you don't mind gets covered in chicken gunk, you can let it dry, shake it out, and spray it out with a hose. I keep a ready supply of old and scrap towels. t-shirts, and other soft absorbent things for animal care and random uses.  

Yes, Momma gets upset about the move. I will have someone hold her or I'll put the box on the ground and shift the eggs with one hand while I hold her with the other arm. Once the eggs are in the box, on the towel, she gets popped inside, the lid gets closed, and I wait until she's settled a bit.

Once she's in her more permanent place, I leave her in a dark and quiet area for the night. Keeping broody hens calm is the best thing you can do for them. It's easy to keep them calm by putting them some place out of the way - an unused room, the corner of the garage, a quiet corner of the chicken run, ... I brood chicks in my kitchen, but broodies tend to go in my "craft room" so they don't have the interruptions that happen in the greater part of the house. Other chicken keepers might house their "broody pens" as a permanent adjunct to their main chicken run, and older chicken run that's been outgrown  and repurposed, or another temporary pen that's just for that broody. I know at least one person here who puts her broody in a wire dog crate and then in the roosting area of her main chicken run. The chicks and Mom are safe, with the flock, and easy to reintegrate when that time comes.

That's really the goal - keep the new family as safe as possible, make sure they are kept in a good location without too much stress or exposure to dangerous circumstances, and try to make it easy to reintegrate them into the flock when the time comes.
I have a couple of pens outside I use for flock reintegration or introducing new chicks. Once the chicks are fully feathered, I stick them in one of those pens and let them continue to grow, in a sheltered spot that lets the flock slowly get used to them. My current teenage chickens moved from the covered pen to the uncovered pen and are now mixed in with the flock. I have kept broody mommas in the covered pen when I didn't have chicks to put there, and that works well for me.  I put a half dog crate shell in there as a "cave" for protection and shelter.

Thank you so much, Matt and Kristine! I really appreciate all of your wisdom around hatching these chicks! Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to try it all out. Our mama hen turned murderous and started pecking holes in her babies after they hatched! We had not even moved her yet--our plan was to move her after they'd hatched because I was nervous about handling the eggs--so it wasn't a behavior brought on by the stress of a move or anything.

On Friday morning we heard peeping and saw a chick's head poke out from under her. Then by Friday afternoon, my daughter looked underneath the hen to see how things were coming along and found two dead chicks in the nest. The other eggs were just pipping and it was stressful all evening and into the next morning trying to catch the babies shortly after each one had emerged from its egg so that we could place it into a brooder before the mama attacked them. But we managed it and this morning, the rescued chicks seem healthy and are peeping away in a brooder in our kitchen.

All of the eggs that we put under her hatched though. If she had not turned murderous, we would have had a 100% hatch rate, which was way better than I had using an incubator. It's a shame it didn't work out--it was such an easy way to hatch some eggs. Anyway, thanks again for all the advice. Have a good week you all!

Hi Nikki,
Can I confirm that you saw the mother attack the chicks? I can't recall if you had the mother isolated from other chickens, but I have heard of far more mother hens who do not or cannot protect the chicks from other chickens, than I have heard of mother hens turning violent on their own chicks. Either way, it might mean that this hen doesn't get to raise chicks any more, but I would love to clarify.

We had put a screen up between her nesting box and the rest of the coop. The reason we looked under the mama and found the dead babies was because my daughter caught her pecking hard on the third hatchling. It was as if she thought they were attacking her eggs. Maybe the hen was stressed out by us checking on her while she was hatching babies?

Ah.
I am so sorry you had that experience. That's frustrating and sad.

I have a hen who is a great broody. She will happily sit and meditate and do whatever hens do while they're broody for ages. She does, however, attack the chicks and doesn't seem to like being a mom when the "momming" part starts. Not a hen to raise eggs, but almost as good as an electric incubator otherwise.
It's unfortunate that she's my breeder for Black Dorkings. Sigh. As soon as I can, I'm replacing her with someone more trustworthy.

Yes, it's sad.
No, the odds are you didn't trigger anything.
If she is able to accept your presence without running off or abandoning her nest, she wasn't overly bothered by you checking on her.

I'm guessing this is her first clutch, so she just might not have made the jump from "Broody" to "Mom". She might make that jump next time, and she may go broody again this year. Hens are funny like that.
The peeping the chicks do in the egg is supposed to help the hen to make that flip in temperament, but some don't make the leap the first time. Some don't make the adjustment at all. You won't know until she sits another clutch successfully.

The first time for any critter doing anything is hard. Some, especially hen-raised birds, make hens raising chicks look like the natural thing it is. I've had problems with hatchery chicks needing a practice go at it, and the only hens I've had who haven't had some kind of false start have been the ones that ended up brooding as a group (this has been an odd year and I had 5 hens who all switched off on three nests and then raised the chicks together, badly).
Your experience isn't as unusual as it would be nice to think.
You did fine. You saved what you could. She didn't mean anything by it, and was just overwhelmed by the strangeness.
You're the Momma Hen, now and the remaining chick/s will do much better in your care.

I would like to add a short report of my experience for those who think that mama hen will raise her chicks the best.

In late spring I had one of my Faverolles sitting in the mechanical room of my unfinished house (I was storing there some rice straw that I use for plaster). 13 chickens hatched, but she would always return to the house for the night with them. Unfortunately some of them were too young to follow her and jump over the slab foundation. She was leaving early with them, around 5 AM, when I'm still asleep, so the chicks were being eaten by something, but two more hatched. After a few days the number got reduced to six and I decided to catch them all and force into the coop where they would be protected.

Then I had one of my Penedesencas sitting on 10 eggs in an empty wood box. She was eating her own eggs and only one chick got hatched, but died after few days - probably preyed by something.

Then my only Orpington was sitting in the coop and 4 chicks hatched and she decided to stay outside of the coop under tarp of my outside tool shelf. After a few days only one survived.

Lesson - if you want to maintain high survivability of the chicks you have to interfere with cruel nature, step in and help.