One day old!
About a month ago, my only chantecler hen, aka brown chicken, decided to go broody. This meant she was determined to be a mama, by almost any means necessary. Broody hens will sometimes sit on fake eggs or golf balls for several weeks hoping they will hatch. When a hen gets broody, they first lay a clutch of eggs and then sit on that clutch for 21 days, until they hatch. They stop laying eggs ,the entire time they are broody, which is an annoyance for many since usually the sole purpose for having hens is to enjoy their eggs.
I had a few choices of how to handle this “situation” I could remove her non-fertile cultch of eggs daily and hope to break her broodiness, I could separate her to try and break the broodiness, or I could give her some fertile eggs to hatch.
When I learned that most chicken breeds have had the “broody trait” purposely bred out of them, I decided to encourage her natural instinct and let her try to hatch some fertile eggs. A hen that is allowed to hatch eggs usually has a 100% hatch rate versus incubated eggs, which yield an 80% hatch rate.
My friend has a rooster and was generous enough to give me 10 eggs from her hens. On May 1st, I placed the eggs in the separate nest area I had created for “Miss Broody” using an old dog crate and decided to see what would happen. Thankfully, everything went as nature intended and last Saturday the first batch of baby chicks began hatching.
Sadly, one of the eggs did not hatch even though there was a fully developed chick inside 😦 Yes, I looked…..I was curious what happened and wanted to be sure there wasn’t a chance it could survive before I buried it.
I believe it would’ve hatched but because it was a “late hatcher” and mama didn’t have time to continue to sit on it with 9 baby chicks to tend. This being a new experience for me, I didn’t realize until it was too late that I should’ve taken the egg and placed it in an incubator to give it more time. Lesson learned!
It has been difficult to not spend most of the day outside watching the cute little fluff balls! They are just so darn cute! The rest of the post will be lots of pictures and videos of mama and her babies! Enjoy!
May 1st, the day I moved her into the separate nest area and placed the 10 eggs inside. Once she got comfy, it didn’t take her long to move all the eggs under her and let the incubation begin.
Saturday, 5/21 Mama keeping the newly hatched babies warm under her wing.
I placed their food closer because it had been about 2 days since mama ate, as soon as I sat it down little fluff balls began to emerge to get a bite!
More chicks eating for the first time.
Below is a video of Mama and babies eating together for the first time. If you look close, you’ll see a tiny beak on the left side grabbing a bite!
Look at that cutie poking its little face out!
The mama keeps the babies underneath her backside and wings to keep them warm. She puffs up really big!
This video was taken on hatch day 2, in the beginning you can see her push an unhatched egg underneath her to keep it warm. These four chicks were the first ones to hatch on Saturday.
Little wings!
2 day old chicks, hanging around outside from under mama’s wings.
Most of her brood!
I’m 3 days old!
The video below is mama showing her babies how to scratch, peck, and forage. You’ll see her “call” them over to peck.
A 4 day old baby, keeping warm on top of her mama.
More 4 day old babies.
6 days old, much more active and their wing are already starting to grow and change.
How many can she hold on her back 🙂
This last video was taken on Monday, when they were three days old. They had become much more active. I have no idea why they peck at their mama’s eyes but watch until the end, the yellow one on her back sneaks up and gets a good grip on her eyelid….yikes!
Doesn’t this make you want some cute baby chicks?!? Happy Friday!
Honeychick Homestead 
May 27, 2016 at 10:48 pm
OMG they are amazing! So these chickens aren’t the mama’s real babies but she doesn’t care? And they eat chicken food on their hatch day? Not like mama vomit? Although they do hatch pretty fully formed in compared to a bird like a robin who is blind and naked. I wonder why that is? I was weirded out by the eye-pecking!!
June 4, 2016 at 1:09 pm
Exactly right Lisa, she isn’t their biological mom. Which from was I learned is common, when hen’s get broody other hen’s lay eggs and “donate” to her cause (having babies). Yep, they eat chicken food day one. And yeah, the eye pecking was brutal!