That first little 'peep peep' from under the wing of your favorite hen, a chick the hen hatched, is something you'll never forget.

That sweet little face is the culmination of the hours and days and weeks that you've put into raising your backyard flock.  In our case, my son strangely knew exactly which of our 14 girls would be the first broody hen - it would be Lucky Wattles, he said, and he would name the first baby 'Pip'.  And so it was.

The Benefit of Broody Mamas

I wasn't sure I wanted to raise chicks this year.  Our hens are only slightly more than a year old and because they're pretty happy and healthy, we've likely got another year or so before their egg production begins to drop off (or so all the books say).  So when suddenly it was May and my son asked if we were still going to raise a small batch of chicks this year, I cringed a little.  No, a lot.  Not only do we not have room for a big brooder, but the idea of having to deal with thermometers and washing water founts every day made me want to run back to the city.  Well, not really, but you get the picture.

Now, conveniently, we had two hens go 'broody' right around that time.  I have to admit that I didn't do a lot of research - it was one of my rare 'dive right in' moments.  We stopped collecting eggs for a couple of days, crossed our fingers that some of them were fertilized courtesy of our big Buff Orpington rooster, and hoped for the best.

21 days later, we had our first chick.  A day later, another 2 sweet little fluffballs.  All tolled, we ended up with 6 live chicks from 14 eggs between the two hens - 2 babies died when their eggs were broken before they were ready to hatch, and the rest either didn't develop fully or weren't fertilized in the first place.

And now, 11 days post- the first hatch, everyone is doing great and we're well on our way to revitalizing our flock with new egg layer for next year.  That is if they're all hens, of course.

Lessons Learned

To say this has been an adventure is an understatement.  There are things I should have known before we started (like the challenges of having two mama hens with chicks in the same flock), and things I'm glad I didn't know (like the fact we'd find dead pre-hatchlings in the nest).  Mostly, it's been a great experience (my son loves it), but it's also been a lot of work.

Here are a few things to keep in mind if you decide to give your broody hens the opportunity to do what hens are meant to do.  It's not an exhaustive list, and I'm not an expert, but it's a good place to start!

1. Separate the Hen(s) - In the days leading up to the eggs hatching, I asked experienced chicken raisers on our Modern Homesteading Facebook page what their best advice was regarding separating the broody hens from the rest of the flock.  As is always the case, we got a lot of different opinions.  What I learned was this: there is no one-size fits all solution.  What will work for you will depend on a number of things: the breed and size of your flock, the temperament of your birds, the size of your chicken house, your nest box set-up, how much time you have to keep an eye on your new additions, and so many other little details.  But in our case, I should have separated the hens when they started sitting on their egg clutches - not after the babies hatched.  What happened was that some of the other hens were hopping into the broody hens' nesting spots and depositing their eggs, which at first added more eggs to the clutch than I originally wanted (hence why we had two hens incubating the eggs - I couldn't tell which ones were the originals and which ones had been recently deposited), and necessitated me marking each of the 'sitting eggs' with an X.  Then when the babies started hatching, we lost a couple, I'm assuming due to other hens stepping around in the nest boxes in a way nowhere near as carefully as the broody mamas and cracking the egg shells before the chicks were ready to hatch.  I tried to keep them safe with chicken wire set up around those two nest boxes (with water and food there for the mamas), but it didn't work very well.  In the end, after the babies hatched, I set up one of those folding dog fences on the floor of the coop, configured into two compartments -  one for each new little family.  Unfortunately, that didn't work so well either, as the two hens were at each other through the wire fencing, knocking over their food and water in the process and stepping on the chicks.  The set up now is one pen using the dog fencing for one family, and a large dog crate for the other, complete with food and water.  Everyone seems happier (myself included).
2. Smaller Clutches are Better than Large - Our Lucky Wattles started out sitting on 14 eggs.  That's WAY too much for a tiny little hen.  So instead of disposing of eggs, we moved 6 over to the other broody hen, Miss Snooty Pants (yes, we called her that for good reason), and hoped for the best.  Next time, we'll make sure to only allow a certain number of eggs in each clutch (I'm thinking 8 is a good number) - it increases the chances of successful incubation and I assume is much less stressful for the mama.
3. Mama Hens Know What They're Doing - Compared to the constant diligence required when brooding chicks without a hen (or even more so, when incubating eggs in an incubator), letting hens look after eggs and chicks is a breeze.  There's no need for thermometers or brooding lamps (unless it's really cold), or showing the chicks where the water is - mama hen does all that and more.  Ours have been out free-ranging with their mamas since about Day 4 and it's fascinating to watch her show them what's edible, what's not, where the water is, and keeping them warm.  Bottom line?  Mama definitely does know best.
4. Other Hens Can Be Nasty - I was warned (thanks Facebook friends!) that part of the reason for separating the  mamas and babies from the rest of the flock is because other hens can be brutal with chicks, even killing them.  Since I didn't really want that, I made an effort to keep them all separate.  But other people say that they just let the mamas defend the babies right from day one.  I'm not quite ready to risk a dead chick - not after all the work I've put into them - so I'll be waiting til the chicks are older, wiser, and bigger and can fend for themselves a bit.
5. You Don't Necessarily Need Special Food - We're feeding non-medicated chick starter and free-ranging somewhat, but I've heard from a number of people that they have their chicks out free-ranging with the mama hen right from day 1 and don't use chick starter or any grit.  You'll need to assess how much food is available for them while free-ranging to determine if there's 'enough' for their quickly growing bodies.  As for me, I'd rather be safe than sorry and will continue to offer both to our 6 little cuties.  Note:chicks apparently can not eat layer mash, so it's important to ensure they don't have access to it.  Formulations for laying hens contain far too much in the way of minerals (calcium in particular) for chicks, so if you're not free ranging your babies or making your own feed, you'll need chick starter (preferably as 'natural' as possible, ideally 'organic', and if not, then at least non-GMO - it does exist).  Here's a relatively updated list of organic chicken feeds in the US and Canada:  Organic Chicken Feed Suppliers.

We've learned so much more than this, but these 5 points stick out as important for the first week or two.  We'll definitely keep you posted as things progress...

One of our Facebook friends said that there's nothing cuter than a mama hen out with her babies, showing them the world and clucking softly.  Now that I've experienced it first-hand and spent a lot of time out in the rain observing our new little 'families', I'd have to say I couldn't agree more.

Have you ever raised chicks with a hen doing most of the work?  Is there anything I missed in this article that you think would be important for new chicken raisers to know?  Are you new to this gig and have questions about hens raising chicks?  If so, share it in the comments below!  We'd love to hear your experiences!

 I’ve kept you hanging about Baby Banzai for long enough.  Here’s the whole story.  

 You know that I have two Phoenix/Yokohama crosses.  One day, Sushi (the pullet) started to lay.  Sure enough, I think my Silkie hen (Beautiful Sweet) got the radar.  My Silkie is an amazing layer for a couple of weeks at a time, but after that she goes broody if you look at her crosseyed.  I must have looked at her funny, so she was broody.  I figured what the heck.  If she wants to set eggs this bad, why not let her?  After all, I was pretty sure that the Phoenix eggs would be infertile at this stage.  I’d just have to candle them to make sure they didn’t go rotten.  

So I put three eggs under Beautiful Sweet.  She was rather disconcerted to be moved to new quarters at night, but she quickly settled in.  I put her in my screen porch in a large dog crate with a milk crate stuffed with hay as a nest.  She soon made it her home.  She started to brood with a vengeance.  I’d never seen a chicken go broody before her, and her zombie-like trance was nothing short of amazing.  

Enter my son.  He wants to HELP.  He’s  four.   A few days after I put the eggs under Beautiful Sweet, he decided to help by gathering them for me and leaving them on the counter.  I put them back under her as quickly as I could, preparing for doom.  Several days later, he wanted to check them and dropped one.  Shortly thereafter, he broke another one.  So, we were down to one.    

Again, I thought, what the heck.  I put three more eggs under that gorgeous Silkie.  By now, she’d been setting for about a week, showing no signs of boredom.  I locked the cage.  I chastised my son.  Soon it was candling day.  You could have  knocked me over with a Silkie feather when I found that ALL FOUR were fertile . . .and one was due in a week and a half.  The others had another 2 weeks to go.   It had to be a mistake, I thought.  After all, I haven't candled anything for 20 years, and that was parakeet eggs.  I settled in for the wait.

I went out to candle on what I thought was the night before due date and heard very tiny peeps.  WOW.  I reached under my (thankfully tolerant) Silkie and found the tiniest little chick I’d ever seen in my life.  For some reason I was surprised at her tiny size, even though I knew she came from an egg about the size of George Washington on a dollar bill.  

Now what to do?  If I left that baby with the hen, she’d abandon the other three eggs.  Then there was the question of keeping the baby warm.  Both of my heat lamps were already being used.  I made the choice.  I took her out and set up a box on top of my other chick brooder to use some of the heat from that lamp.  I put some hay chop in it, then covered it with paper towels, even the cutout handholes.  She’s just born, I figured.  She won’t possibly get out of there.  I set up a waterer with marbles and scattered feed.  I put her in the box.  

Shortly thereafter, I heard a very tiny thud.  She had fallen out of the handhole in the box on top of the brooder (which is over 2’ tall and sits on top of a 2’ platform).  With my heart in my mouth, I cradled her tiny body in my hands.  I willed her to be OK.  Soon, she moved and hopped up.  She seemed OK!  I found her a different box (with no handholes!) and placed her in it.  She was promptly christened Banzai in honor of her leap.  

I checked on her constantly.  I had shown her how to drink, and I saw her peck at the food.  Still, on the third day after her hatching, she spent a lot of time sleeping.  I thought she might be cold and lonely, so I picked her up and carried her around with me.  When I had to make supper, I put her back in the box.  

An hour later, her tenacious little heart had stopped beating.  I’d lost her.  I felt like I let her down but I wasn’t sure what I could have done.   

 Her 3 siblings also hatched just a little earlier than I expected, but I thought I’d stay out of it this time.  They’re with my broody Silkie and all are doing wonderfully.  So, lesson learned for me!  

Back in November, one of my young Delaware hens decided to go broody. My husband and I were surprised that a hen would want to sit on a nest that late in the season, and this hen was very young, just six months old!

The place she originally chose to sit was not great for the time of year. She was on the ground, and in a place where we couldn’t really keep her warm. We decided to try and move her into a brooder pen. Mama, which is what I named this hen, did not approve of our choice! She would not stay on the nest, so we let her back out. She promptly returned to her original nest place for about a half day. She must have then decided that this wasn’t such a good place after all, and moved herself to a much more suitable location. She was off of the ground, and protected from all the elements, so we left her there.

Mama had five eggs under her. They were not all her eggs; some were from our other chickens. We thought this would be just a nice amount of eggs for a first mother to try, so we left her with that many.

We tried not to get to excited because we weren’t sure that she would hatch the eggs, being so young. It turns out she is a very good mama! The first eggs started hatching on December 7th. The fourth egg to hatch had some problems. The peep started to break out of the shell, but never made it the entire way out, and died. The last egg hatched on the 9th.

As soon as she was finished hatching, I moved her back into the brooder pen in our basement. We now have four healthy, adorable little chicks. I am anxious now to see if we will have more broody hens come spring, and whether they are as good at mothering as Mama is!

Merry Christmas to everyone at GRIT, from my peeps!