OCT 7, 2024

Death, daring and 20 chickens coming home to roost.

What's new with the 2024 chicks?

Well it's been a few months since we updated you on how our 'baby chicks' are doing. We tried something different this year- hatching using an incubator and then placing those chicks under a broody hen within moments.

Overall, it was a success. Our two hens (one bantam and one buff orpington) were devoted mothers. However, the bantam (who has historically been at the bottom of the pecking order) was a bully with the chicks who weren't hers and didn't look like hers (aka, the black chicks). This sadly ended in the death of one marran and the near death of another. It was after this second near death experience (the bantam hen almost pecked the poor chick down to her neck bone), that we put mama bantam hen in chicken jail.

Chicken jail is a wonderful invention and we have used it to break various hens out of their broodiness in the past. Our old dog crate is a safe place for a hen to be, so we placed the bantam hen in there and for a week or so, while the poor marran chick recovered, the chicks of the bantam could get in and out through the crate bars just fine for cuddles and safety with their mum.

As we are now a few months on, we have encountered different challenges and learned a few things to share here.

1. The chicks were too small to be outside at 1 week old, even under their mum and even during summer. We lost two chicks due to pouring rain, as they got stuck outside their baby coop and couldn’t get warm under their mum. As they were outside, we did check every couple of hours but even that wasn’t often enough. We had a good cry after finding them.

2. Cockerel chicks will fight one another even from about 2 months old. We decided in the end to dispatch (humanely) our two cockerel chicks before the cold weather set in. This was firstly as we don’t want to keep a cockerel and secondly, because they were both wandering much too far from home (aka across the road into the neighbours garden…)

3. Chickens don’t co parent very well. Although having two broody hens meant both could be given some chicks, the buff orpington was ultimately the more capable mother. Her size helped, but her instincts were clearly stronger. As soon as we took down the fencing that separated the new chicks from larger hens, our bantam mum was straight back to the old coop, to sit broody once more on other hens eggs. Leaving her ‘chicks’ under the watchful eye of the buff orpington mum.

Now we seem to have 6 healthy chicks (all hens it seems, but we’ve been wrong before) who are growing well and exploring the garden (and driveway) together.

We will update you again soon as they mature and it will be fascinating to see what kind of eggs they lay. Will we get lucky and have another blue egg layer?