[melholly]

Hello all,


Going to bow to your better judgements and experience on this! Finally our Light Sussex has decided to go broody. All good - apart from the timing! We go away for a week and when are the chicks due? 2 days before we get back!! We do have a lady who looks after our sheep and dogs etc so she'll be in charge! But we found her sitting and broody so set her up in a 'safe place.' That being a blue 'crate' type box about 4 inches tall lined with shavings. In that box is an old hanging basket (lined) that she is using as he 'nest.' She safe and dry in an old run covered with plastic sheeting and a tarpaulin.


My question that suddenly dawned on me in the middle of the night though is once the chicks are hatched in that hanging basket how will a) they get out and b) they get back in? I was wondering if I should move her nest now onto the shavings in the crate then make a 'ramp' from crate to floor? I'm having nightmares of these chicks hatching beautifully but then freezing to death as they can't get back to the nest!!


It's her first time as a broody and our first time hatching naturally!


Advice welcome!


Mx

[Hevxxx99]

Yes.

Make the nest accessable for any chicks that fall out, but enclosed enough to stop them from doing so, if you see what I mean.  The worst problem is when they get knocked out by other chicks or eggs or a restless hen just after or during hatching.  Once they've hatched and flopped around exhausted and dried out they will stay under mum, if they can, for 24 hours and she shouldn't move until all eggs have hatched or she's given up on the late/infertile ones.

It can be so hit and miss, but try to maximise the chick's chances.  If the hen is very broody, she won't be put off by being moved somewhere safe and shut away from other curious and jealous hens.

[suziequeue]

God - I have SOOOOO been there!!!!

In the end I got my hands well spread under and lifted hen, eggs and bedding out of the "too-high sided" nest box that we had originally put her in and onto some folded up newspaper on the floor of the broody coop that she was in.

Mrs Chicken settled straight back onto the eggs and we had a good hatch if my memory serves me right......

I like the idea of a hanging basket though.

[roddycm]

I've had free range hens for 25 years nesting in all sorts of strange places! They have all been bang on time, literally 21 days and then all the chicks hatch within a few hours of eachother. I set mine to hatch on fridays and saturdays. It really is that precise as long as all the eggs are set on the same day. So my advice is to leave her where she is now and then on the hatching day you can keep an eye on her and move her to a more accesible nest once the chicks have hatched. With all these things the less fuss made the better! I had one naked neck nest in a hole in a tree, i couldnt get to it easily so i left her to it and she appeared one morning with 8 chicks very happily clucking away! I did put her in a covered run after that though as I refuse to lose chicks to predators (birds of prey etc)! I am sure she'll do a grand job!

[melholly]

Thanks all.


She's absolutely cast iron broody. Bloomin dog got in her run the other day (soppy lab just wanted a nose) and he got well and truly booted out with many a peck on his nose for good measure! I am lifting her off each day to make her eat and drink but she's doing little of both and we go through the same routine of feathers out, tail up, full fluff then growls and pecks galore. She's back on within 5 minutes every day!


Suzie - got the idea of the hanging basket from a chicken book. She's ever so cozy in it and there's no way chicks could escape or fall out of the 'bowl' but I just don't think there's enough space which is something a) I didn't think of and b) the book didn't say! Ah you live and learn eh?


I think I'm going to have to evict her out the basket and into the oven tray cleaning box that the basket was sat in. I'm then going to put a ramp. Because of the timings I couldn't bear the thought of seeing chicks that had been exposed to the elements coz they couldn't make it back in!


By the way - someone told me this week I shouldn't move her at all after day 17. Is this right?


Mx

[Hevxxx99]

Don't move her from day 20 so the eggs are not disturbed.  I can't imagine her quick 5 minutes will matter before that ad better she gets off to poo than soils the eggs.

Good luck!