Broody Hen Isolation Action...

So, when you go about doing the surrogate hen thing, there are a few considerations:

1.) You stick some FAKE eggs underneath her first while she's all broody.

2.) You swap out the fake eggs for the real chicks (Indiana Jones style) in the middle of the night when momma hen is way out-of-it and when she comes to in the a.m. she thinks she's hatched the eggs.

3.) The babies can't be too old (three days or less is the general rule) or there's a chance that momma chicken will see through the ruse and kill the chicks as not her own.

4.) The momma and babies have to stay isolated from the rest of the flock during their early weeks or sometimes, allegedly, the other adults will peck the newborns to death out of some kind of competitive spirit.

So to that end I had to basically build an all-new henhouse...adjoined shotgun-style to the original house. My original plan was to stick broody hen in the new condo, and then later on open up the adjoining wall so that it's all one coop and big enough for the whole flock including the newbies.

Part two of that plan will still go down eventually, but after putting the new chicks in (see my next post) I realized it would be greatly beneficial if broddy hen had use of the fenced-in, open-air "run" part of the OLD coop so that she could stretch her legs and more importantly feed on ADULT food when it became time for her to start taking nutrition again. Plus it would give the chicks a way to acclimate to the outside world when they were ready without fear of predation.

So right quick I had to modify the new henhouse to accommodate our three other adult chickens instead: that mean building laying boxes, roosting poles, and a slip-proof entryway plank. Here's a pic of Mr. Bawkbagawk trying out the new laying boxes/roosting poles prior to installation.