Thought I may as well continue this thread with my newest chicken question. One of my hens (buff orpington) is setting on eggs, which is fine, I plan to let her go ahead and hatch them out. I've been reading up on after-care and it appears I don't have to do much, just let the hen take care of the chicks. Couple questions:
1) Do I need to worry about the little guys falling off the chicken ladder? The base of the chicken door is about 2' off the ground, with about a 6-8" wide closed ladder to the ground. I suppose I could put some chips below it to cushion them if they do fall off. Or will the mom prevent them from adventuring outside until they are feathered out?
2) It makes sense to me to provide a chick feeder and chick waterer, both low enough to the ground for the little buggers to get to them. My regular feeder and waterer are up off the ground a good 6" so the chicks wouldn't have any way to get to them until they got bigger. If I offer them chick feed rather than layer feed, will the adult hens mob that? Not sure if one is more palatable than the other?
3) Should I build a pen for the chicks that the mom could get in and out?
I'm not sure if anything will even come of this, but I'm willing to give it a shot. It's my understanding the hatching time is about 3 weeks or so and she's been setting for about a week. Not sure how many eggs she is sitting on, but guessing about 8 or so (my daily harvest before she went broody). I've provided an alternate nest box for the other hens, but they seem to just keep laying eggs in the same box with the brooder (it's a large double-seater nest box) or creating their own nests. Every day is an Easter egg hunt...
P.S. Yes, I still have my nasty rooster. My latest thought is if this chicken hatching experiment works, THEN he gets the boot. He's as mean as ever, but is too large now to fly out of the yard so he can't do much other than strut along the fence line and scowl at me.
