Free Range chicken hatches brood - need advice

[QueBota]

Not sure what to do here. We have 13 (now 14 + chicks) chickens and a rooster that we allow to run loose. They generally stay around the house and are locked in a coop at night to roost. Occasionally lose a chicken to predators.

I though we had lost our oldest hen, Henrietta, a 6 year old Delaware. She "disappeared" about two weeks ago. Looked in all the usual chicken hide outs, not a sign of her, no signs of her being taken by a predator either.

I went out last night to retrieve some old tractor parts form the back of one of barns and heard some strange sound coming from the corner behind an assorted pile of stuff.

Went to investigate and found Henrietta sitting on a "nest". She had gathered various materials and built herself a nice little nest. I thought she may have been sick or injured, went over to take a look and she wasn't very friendly. I put on a pair of work gloves to pick her up and check her out. When I lifted her up there was a collection of chicks and some yet unhatched eggs, was relieved she was still with us, had her since she was a chick, and quite suprised to see her new brood.

Kind of odd, we have 6 Ideal 236 hens and 6 Rhode Island Red hens, the rooster is a RIR as well. The chicks and remaining eggs seemed to be an equal mix of each.

Sorry for the long intro, need some advice on the best way to handle her and the chicks. Pretty sure if they are left alone the chicks won't be around long. The barn is away from the house, close to the woods, many chances for the chicks to be eaten. There only protection, besides Henrietta, are two female goats who hang out and sleep under a roof right outside the barn.

Also, not sure how the other chickens/rooster will react to the chicks.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Gary Fowler]

I had 3 hens brooding at the same time which was taking up all my laying boxes. Finally I took a pencil and marked all the eggs so I could remove the fresh ones as they were laid. I took all the eggs and put them under one bantam hen that was very aggressive and she hatched all but 2 of the eggs. Now, they didn't all hatch at one time due to varied laying days, so after 28 days (incubation time for chicks) I started finding chicks under the hen. I removed them as I found them and put them in a box with a heat lamp feeding them chick starter mash. It took about 2 weeks for all of them to hatch out and I kept putting them in a box till I got them all. The hen kept setting on the empty nest and I kept all the chick in the box for a 2-3 more weeks. Then I caught the hen and put her in a coop then placed all the chicks which were of varied sizes due to age and variety. She took right up with them, covering them and protecting them. I kept them in the coop for 2 more weeks and finally yesterday I turned them loose to free range. I still put out water and feed for them and they are growing fast. I lost one chick while in the cage for unknown reasons but it was after a rain storm so I suspect he got cooled too much and succumbed. The rest had picked all the feathers off of him by the next morning when I found him.
The mother hen will keep the other chickens at bay IF they try anything but I have never seen chickens on free range bother younger ones to the extent of injury. They will sometimes give chase to another for fighting over food source but not to injure. Mine (9 of them) are free ranging now and mother is right with them showing them to way of a chicken. I also had 5 that were hatched in an incubator a month or so before the broody hens started and they were kept for about a month in cages till turned loose with the flock. They had no problems finding their way either.

Caged up, they will become carnivorous and if one is injured for any reason, they will start pecking at it till it is dead if left in the cage.

 

[QueBota]

Gary, thanks for the info. The chickens that we are running now were all bought from the local farm store (except Henrietta) 2 years ago in early April as 1-2 day old chicks. We raised them in boxes under heat lamps until the were feathered out and pullet size. All have done well so far.

I will start gathering chicks when I get home from work today and place them in a box under a lamp until all eggs are hatched out, them reunite them with Mom. I have a large dog crate I can place them under a roof next to the barn.

We had one of the Ideal hens go broody earlier this year, didn't work out, none of the eggs hatched. The current brood is a mix of Ideal and RIR eggs/chicks. Looks like the Ideal and RIR hens found the spot in the barn and layed some eggs there as well. Don't think any of the eggs were Henritta's, she's a Delaware and her eggs are noticably different from the RIR eggs. Also, I don't think the rooster ever got Henrietta, she is almost as large as he is and much older, wants nothing to do with him. They would keep their distance, he would run her off if she did something he didn't like. The rest of the hens are minus back feathers thanks to the randy rooster, he keeps busy.

Hopefully the chicks will feather out and grow large enough to survive before the "cold" weather hits our part of Maryland around late November.

Anyone know how to determine roosters at a young age, already have one and one is enough.

Thanks again,
Dave

 

[creekbend]

If the genital organ is present in the Vent and resembles a Pimple, it is a Rooster.

 

[QueBota]

Thanks, will break out the 2X readers and have a look.

When we bought our last bunch of chicks from the farm supply store they guaranteed something like 99% accurracy delivering hens

We recevied 8/8 Ideal 236 hens, 6/7 RIR hens. Glad one of the RIR was a rooster. Funny watching him grow up and learn how to crow, not very well at first, he has it down now. He is a character, full of personality.
Nice looking chicken as well.

I'm sure he wouldn't tolerate any competition, he is the barnyard boss, runs a tight ship and keeps the hens inline. Doesn't like anything/anyone near his chickens.

Dave

 

[joshuabardwell]

I have a similar situation with my chickens. I would do one of two things: 1) put mama and the chicks up in a brooder until the chicks are big enough that you're sure they won't get picked off easily. 2) leave them alone and let nature take its course. Option 3) would be to take the chicks and put them in a brooder separate from mama, but I always like to let mama animals raise their babies if possible.

 

[QueBota]

I think I'm going with #1, I have a very large dog crate that I can keep Momma and the chicks in until they become large enough to have a chance "in the wild". One of my small goat barns is only occupied by two female goats at this time. Plan on putting the dog crate in the barn with the goats, near their sleeping area.

Thniking about leaving the door on the dog crate open during the day and securing it at night. Goats may provide some security. If you walk through the woods at night behind my barns with a flashlight it's unbelievable the number of racoons you can spot. We follow the same procedure with the current chickens, let them out at daylight and lock them in a large coop overnight. Most of the hens are on the roost at least 30 minutes before dark, the rooster rounds up the stragglers and chases them into the coop before dark.

Suprised we haven't lost more chickens, we have a couple of hawks that nest in the woods behind our place every spring/summer and a couple resident Great Horned Owls. Have heard some coyotes but haven't seen one yet.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Gary Fowler]

If you let those little chicks out, you wont ever catch them again and they may or may not go back in the cage, most likely not. One got out of my box and even in my shop with few obstacles, I liked to have never caught him and he was only a few weeks old. I find that a fish dip net is good for hemming them up and catching them as long as the net holes is smaller than the chick.
Keep your pen close to a water hose as they do make a big mess in the cage. I kept several layers of newspaper in my box and used the hose to clean the pen which was made of hardware cloth. All told, I think I penned them for about 4 weeks.

 

[joshuabardwell]

I've found that the chickens can be pretty wily about not getting picked off by hawks during the day. They seem most vulnerable when they are sleeping at night, and that's when we have almost always lost ours, although we have had a few losses to hawks too. Ducks, on the other hand, were the exact opposite. Dumb as rocks about hiding from hawks, but such light sleepers that they would flip out at the slightest provocation all night.

 

[joshuabardwell]

I do like your plan of letting them out during the day. As long as you can keep mama penned up, the babies won't go far. If they can get out during the day, she can teach them to peck and scratch, and they will be better foragers as adults.