# New for me - getting babies to slip with broody hen.



## 7chicks (Jun 29, 2012)

Little excited, and a good amount of nervous. I have an Australorp who went broody about 5 days ago. Lost one of my first girls that I have had since she was a day old chick and had just turned 4 years old this 5/16. Between the sadness of losing Chloe and the temptation of broody Lilah, I ordered 3 day old chicks this morning that will be females. 1 - Silver Laced Wyandotte, 1 - Buff Orpington, and 1 - Ameraucana. 

The babies will be here this next Tuesday June 10th which happened to fall on my day off. My plan is to slip them under Lilah. I've never done this process before so I'm looking for any advice from those who have done this. I have a tractor coop that I will be beefing up and getting ready for Lilah and the babies to be in. 

Anything in particular I need to know about the breeds I chose and about how to get Lilah to take to the babies?

Thanks for your help.


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

The only challenge you might have is that she hasn't been broody long enough. She might not let you graft the peeps. Keep watch, make sure she accepts them. I don't like saying do it at night because so much could go wrong just before you get out there in the morning.


----------



## 7chicks (Jun 29, 2012)

I plan on introducing her to the babies under supervision while I am home and there to help. I'm not a fan of introducing newbies at night. Chickens are too smart for that.


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

7chicks said:


> I plan on introducing her to the babies under supervision while I am home and there to help. I'm not a fan of introducing newbies at night. Chickens are too smart for that.


LOL Agree with that.


----------



## FarmRookie (Apr 18, 2013)

If she accepts them you will lose the eggs she's sitting on as they will not hatch by the time she leaves the nest. Best to raise the chicks yourself in a brooder and let her hatch the eggs.


----------



## 7chicks (Jun 29, 2012)

The eggs she is sitting on are infertile. I have no roo, just my girls. A couple years ago, I found a handmade wooden egg at a roadside park so I slipped that under her yesterday evening in replacement of one of the real eggs. Plan to look for 2 more fake eggs for her today so I can take out the other 2 real eggs. She took to the wooden egg just fine. Sure is one crabby little lady right now! Glad she always lets me mess with her despite her mood. 

When she first started laying eggs a 2 1/2 years ago, she would wait until I get home then frantically rush into the house settle in the dog bed on the couch to lay her egg. Yep, she would make my little dog move. Ya, she might be a "wee" bit of a spoiled brat.  Its those beautiful big brown eyes I tell ya! Those darn things turn me into a sucker every time.


----------



## 7chicks (Jun 29, 2012)

Bring home my 3 new little day old babies tomorrow afternoon. Eggcited and a bit nervous. Not sure how things will go. If Lilah will be happy to have them or if I will be having house chicks for a little while.  Any other tips to help me out here?


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Really, its all up to her. Try sliding them up under her and then stand back and watch. If she gets aggressive you might have to take them and try again in a few days.


----------



## chicksRus (Jun 17, 2014)

this is the same issue i'm facing right now. trying to get one of my silkies to accept these ameraucana babies. i did not know there was an option, i thought you had to slide them under her at night and stand back to watch what happens. you mean you can introduce them in daytime? what time is best? in the daytime she is off the nest now, seeing after the chicks that she already adopted. asking her to take more is probably not good. i don't feel like i have any other option than her. the blue cochins don't want to, one of the other three silkies has a baby that she's constantly with, and pecks anyone else, and the third silkie is the weird one who pecks all the babies unmercifully. what will happen if nobody will mother these babies? when will they be old enough to merge with the flock? is my partner right, sooner the better, while they're still so young? i don't know what to do.


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

You're seeing it in your own flock, every bird is different. 

I had one that would steal chicks from other hens, did not matter if they were a day old or a week old. If I didn't watch a mother hen was liable to lose her peeps to this super mother.


----------



## chicksRus (Jun 17, 2014)

ha. yes, every bird is different. like people. you can't stereotype. for instance, take snowball, one of the three white silkies that my neighbor gave to me as chicks last august. she is different from what you hear the norm is, that silkies are good mothers. she constantly pecks the babies. i'm constantly having to fuss at her. and the bizarre thing is, she insisted on sleeping in the nest with the orp hen who had five babies. then the even more bizarre thing was, i tried separating them, so she wouldn't keep pecking the peeps, and the orpington moved back into the nest with snowball. hmm. maybe she needed some help with discipline. ha. speaking of stealing, i think that happened in my flock as well. one day i noticed that a chick had hatched under one of the blue cochins, then a few days later the chick was under one of the silkies, and she raised it, still has it. i'm going to try to find info on blue cochins' mothering habits/reputation. mine have set faithfully, then just sort of abandon the chick after a week. and i also had a situation in which two of them raised one baby between them. it was like team teaching. but i didn't know they would turn right around and begin setting on new eggs after the babies they hatched are a month old. that's going on now. do chickens have two sets of chicks a season? and what age is the chick usually when the mother stops mothering them? the ones who are approx a month old are already up roosting with the adults. they look so cute sitting there in a little row.


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Its all on the individual birds. I've had them do two weeks, I've had them still hanging on to their peeps at a couple of months old. 

With my two week hens if they still brooded their chicks at night I didn't worry about it. I had a warming station for the peeps when the weather was not warm enough for them during the day. 

I might still have a pic of my Head Tuck with her newly hatched chicks and her two month old up under her wing. Talk about a Momma's boy, that one was.


----------



## chicksRus (Jun 17, 2014)

i don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but i'm going to ask because i've been worrying about this for two days. i didn't want to join the site and start posting so many times right away, but something has come up with the ameraucana/easter egger babies, and i really need advice. one of them is crying relatively constantly. she doesn't seem sick, and she will stop and calm when i pick her up. i've never had one do this. is something wrong with her, or is she just very, very vocal? they have food and fresh water, and heat. one of her poops had a good amount of the white substance in it. (i need to know the name of it, and how much of it to expect in a normal poop). also, these chicks run up to my hand when i put it down in their box, and they jump on my hand, and wiggle into my palm. it's really precious, but every chick i've known runs from my hand initially when i reach down into their enclosure. so it's very different behaviour than i've been exposed to. okay, well, i will be waiting for feedback while i try to comfort the crying baby. but she starts right back when i move.


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

There is nothing at all wrong with posting a lot. It gives us something new to read and to think about. And an opportunity to share.

Yes, something is wrong with the peep. Try mixing us some of its feed with water and offer it to her/him individually. It might be being pushed away from the feed. If that isn't it there is probably not much you can do. Other than make sure it understands the waterer. Take it to the waterer and put you finger in it and make the water move a bit. Believe it or not, they do not automatically know about how the waterer.

The white is urine. There should be more brown than white so it sounds like peep isn't eating.


----------



## chicksRus (Jun 17, 2014)

she is really enjoying the warm water mixed into the chick starter, but she's still peeping. i'm sitting just beside their box, observing them, so i have ruled out her getting pushed away from the food, and not knowing how to use the waterer. when i pick her up and hold her close, she quiets from an almost shriek to a soft, patterned twitter, and is very still. but i can't hold her all the time. when i try to sit her in my lap so i can have both hands free, she starts up again. i just put her back down in the box with the others and she is eating again. so it may be that she's just starving. now, a moment later, everyone is huddled together trying to sleep, and she is too, but still twittering. with her eyes closed. okay, now they're all asleep, and she's quiet. they wake each other up every few minutes, i don't know how they get any restorative sleep. someone will jerk, scratch, readjust, and then they all try to settle back into one another. they had all been asleep for over forty five minutes, when they just now woke up, so that's pretty good. oops~ now they've gone back to sleep. i thought they were going to stay awake. the difference between a chick's experience in the box/brooder versus its being reared by a mother in the coop seems vast. how many days does the mother keep them in the nest before she ventures out with them? it seemed like they had only been hatched two days when i would come out in the morning to find the mother and babies out in the chicken yard together. i thought they were too small, but they did fine. if we got these chicks on friday, they must have hatched on wednesday, which would make them a week old. i'm wondering why they seem too young to put out in the coop with the flock when there are chicks who are only a week older than them already acclimated since they were two or three days old. meeps has been quiet for two hours now, sleeping with the others. maybe she's going to be okay. maybe the wet food did it. thank you, robin.


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Only time will tell if the wet food was the boost the peep needed.

How soon chicks are allowed out all depends on climate. When I had peeps hatch when the temps were still too cool for them Mom and peeps were kept up with a warming station for them in their pen. That was easy for me since my coop was divided in to separate pens for breeding purposes. 

If its too soon you will hear stressed chicks. Pretty much sounding like your little one does.

It is different raising them ourselves and what the Mom's do. But not by a lot. They depend on us to teach them food and water from there they can take over. Instinct plays a big part in their ability to survive.


----------



## 7chicks (Jun 29, 2012)

The first time around with day old chicks, mine knew exactly how to take water and food. This time around, I did have to show my peeps how to take water. Ummm, that lesson didn't include standing in the water dish ...


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

LOL I use the 1/2 gallon waterers. Every once in a while one would put one leg in the waterer and run in a circle not being able to figure out how to get loose.


----------



## chicksRus (Jun 17, 2014)

ha. great photo, 7 chicks. mine have a water dish exactly like that, although i am thinking of putting the waterer in, to see if it will cut down on them fowling their water by standing or falling into it. mine accidentally fall into it and scramble quickly to get out. i have seen my first chicks do what robin described, putting one foot in and running in a circle not being able to figure how to get loose. that is funny.
well, meeps (i have named her this because of the sound she makes) was crying loudly again until i picked her up, and i'm sitting here holding her and she's quiet. when i take my hand off of her, she starts again, and wriggles her head trying to get back under my hand. just don't know what to make of this. it makes me think she's not physically ill, the fact that she will quiet.


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

They will be quiet when held because its getting a sense of security. It should not still be crying if all is well. It should be interacting with the others by this point.


----------



## TheLazyL (Jun 20, 2012)

7chicks said:


> Bring home my 3 new little day old babies tomorrow afternoon. Eggcited and a bit nervous. Not sure how things will go. If Lilah will be happy to have them or if I will be having house chicks for a little while.  Any other tips to help me out here?


And how did the adoptive hen do?


----------



## 7chicks (Jun 29, 2012)

How funny! Look on the other hens faces have to be priceless. Right now all my older girls are continuing to run away from the babies.


----------



## chicksRus (Jun 17, 2014)

she is interacting with the others, eating, drinking, sleeping, and has times when she's not crying. and she twitters softly when i'm holding her. it is a very sweet sound. i'm just continuing to pray that she will be okay and grow out of whatever this is that is bothering her. i have been trying to to see if her poop looks normal, which is a challenge for me, because i am so a.d.d. and it takes very little to distract me. staying focused on task is my nemesis. ugh. i saw one of the others in mid poop, and i picked it up with toilet paper to examine it, because i thought it was strange that it came out as a long line instead of in a blob. the problem with assessing poop is that i don't really know what i'm looking for. yesterday someone was pooping yellowish, loose, but i don't see it today. i just thought of this~ i could hold her, or any of them, until they poop, and then look at it. these chicks haven't pooped on me nearly as much as the other chicks i've had. ha. don't know what to make of that. and as i said before, they are very different also from my past experience in that they like to be held, and come running up to my hand when i reach down into their box. these are the ameraucana, or easter eggers that we got last friday. so i figure they're ten days old. what type of temperament do they usually have? i hesitate to ask this, for i understand and leave room for individuality, but believe there are some traits that are attributable to each breed. for instance, i had never had silkies, but read that they are sweet, affable, good mothers, and my three have been just like that. well, not snowball. two out of three ain't bad. (our grand daughter named snowball, comet and chubbers, and i believe that when a child names your animal, you must stay with the name, no matter. it was mighty difficult though, when our son named our cat 'bama'. he also named his chicken bama. hmm...)


----------



## chicksRus (Jun 17, 2014)

the posting time is off on here. i just posted and it's five thirty p.m., but it says it is ten thirty p.m. i'm in alabama, and when i joined it had a place for you to register what time zone you are writing from, which i did. so is anyone else experiencing this?


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

chicksRus said:


> the posting time is off on here. i just posted and it's five thirty p.m., but it says it is ten thirty p.m. i'm in alabama, and when i joined it had a place for you to register what time zone you are writing from, which i did. so is anyone else experiencing this?


You can go back in to your profile and fix it. Sometimes we have to go back and redo selections.


----------



## chicksRus (Jun 17, 2014)

meeps is dying in my hand. i'm going to hold her until her heart stops, and bury her tomorrow morn. she just did a loud cry. something internal must not have formed right, and that's why she's been crying all along. she's still peeping softly, but her neck is limp and she won't open her eyes. this is really sad, and hard.


----------



## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Unfortunately losing some is part of chicken keeping. Its always the hardest losing a chick, you did what you could.


----------



## chicksRus (Jun 17, 2014)

yes. thank you for the kind words. it was very hard. the others seem fine, although i did get alarmed when i walked out here this morn and one was peeping loudly. i wonder if the store would replace the chick who died. i am going tomorrow to get more chick starter, and i could try. 
will it be okay to feed them cream of rice until i can get their food tomorrow? i thought about grits, but am out of those too.


----------



## 7chicks (Jun 29, 2012)

Oh chicksRun, I'm so sorry.  Hugs! I'm a little leary of rice because of its potential to swell up. Do you have some yogurt? That would be okay.


----------

