Hucka Bucka Hucka Bucka Buck Buck Buck

UPDATED PHOTO: Here they are on Day Two…

 

 

Tomorrow or Friday Jackie and I are getting six new chicks. We’re going to see if we can introduce them to a brooding hen to see if she will adopt and raise them.

 

One of our Wyandotte hens has been laying on eggs like a trouper for over two weeks now, and I know she wants to hatch them, so I read up on introducing baby chicks to brooding hens. It looks entirely possible. So this time, instead of having to keep the wee ones under a heat lamp , we might be able to actually “adopt them out” to a nurture-happy hen and watch her raise them and teach them to scratch and hunt.

 

Introducing chicks to a hen can be dicey. Some hens accept chicks, some don’t. You introduce one chick at night when the broody hen is asleep or resting by placing it under her breast or under a wing, then you keep checking back to be sure she’s amenable to the idea. If not, you remove the chick. If she is, you introduce the rest of the new flock of chicks the next night and again watch to be sure she accepts them and they accept her. They have to be very young chicks– a day old or so, apparently, or the chicks don’t “get it” and hang with the hen.

 

It’s going to be interesting. I’ve already set up for both scenarios–happy hen, happy chicks; unhappy hen, happy chicks. We’re hoping for the best but planning for the worst case scenario, at which time the chicks will get brought into our garage or sequestered in the hen house (with everyone else locked out–they hang with the goats this time of year, anyway) and raised under a heat lamp until they’re old enough to be introduced to adult hens–usually a couple of months.

 

Don’t worry–I WILL take pictures so you can vicariously join the adventure as it unfolds…

 

P.S. If you haven’t figured it out already, I am an animal nut. I have had so many different kinds of animals in my life that I’ve written two books about animals: Serval Son:Spots and Stripes Forever and Let No Day Dawn that the Animals Cannot Share.  I think most people love animals, so I’m not “off topic” for very many of you!!!