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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Mama hens

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  • From: Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Mama hens
  • Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:29:00 +0000

Nobody knows how to raise a baby better than a Mama - Good for you Harvey to realize that. Which varieties have you had the best experience with "adoption"? I'd like to get myself a good old Mama hen to raise some babies, but I don't really want to limit myself to a single breed so I thought if I snuck in other eggs she might raise the others too, but I don't want a smart or a bigoted chicken that would recognize the difference if you know what I mean.

Tameson - a Mama Hen herself - currently nursing #3

To me, "adoption" could mean two things: You seem to imply it in the sense of putting eggs from other hens--i.e. your preferred selections--under a hen. Believe me, a serious broody doesn't care whose eggs you put under her--she wants to work! I collect eggs from my breeders and keep them on hand, rotating out the older eggs. Anytime a hen goes broody I have eggs all ready to go. I've even set duck and turkey eggs under chicken hens with good results--once even had a bantam hen hatch out a gosling! What a hoot--gosling was almost as big as mama from day one!

"Adoption" can also mean giving live chicks (e.g. ones you've bought thru the mail, or from another hen who had some sort of problem). I've usually had excellent results, but it's not sure-fire. Here's a quote from my BYP article on broody hens (pardon the formatting):

Grafting chicks onto a broody hen
If my description of the advantages of a broody hen over the artificial brooder sounds good to you, you might conclude that it would be great to give purchased day-old chicks to a broody hen to mother. Will a broody accept such an offer? Maybe. Most of my attempts to “graft” purchased chicks onto a broody hen in this way have been successful. However, never assume that success is certain, and be prepared to brood the chicks yourself if the hen doesn’t cooperate. The hen should have been on the nest a couple of weeks—she is unlikely to accept a “graft” if she has been broody only a couple of days. But you can “hold” a willing broody on her nest with plastic eggs for 4 or even 5 weeks until your purchased chicks come in. The hen is not counting off days on a mental calendar—she moves on to the next phase when she hears live chicks under her.
To make a “graft,” you should again work only at night. Remove the plastic eggs and slip the chicks (who have been kept quiet in their shipping carton through the day) under the hen. Check on them later that night, and again at first light. Chances are excellent the hen will be delighted to welcome “her” new babies into the world. I have only a couple of times had a hen reject grafted chicks, but in the worst case, the hen killed a few of the “intruders.” Monitor closely and be prepared to intervene.
My most spectacular success grafting chicks occurred with a White Jersey Giant hen named Hope. Hope came off the nest with only six chicks of her own. Shortly after I put her and her chicks in a section of the poultry house, I bought in 42 day-old chicks, and set them up in a brooder in the next section. Believe me when I say that Hope asked to be mother to those new chicks, and when her “request” finally penetrated my thick skull and I opened the door between the sections, Hope rushed in and began busily mothering them.
But that is not the end of the story. That night I tried grafting ten purchased goslings onto a broody goose. The goose was willing, but the goslings wouldn’t “fix” on her, wouldn’t recognize her as mother, and kept wandering off through the dew-wet grass. By morning, goslings were going down like dominoes. In desperation, I scooped up the remaining seven and prayerfully offered them to Hope. She didn’t even blink.

--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us




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