How to Raise Baby Chicks with a Surrogate Broody Hen

One of the best ways to raise baby chicks is to let a broody hen do all the work. And, it’s surprisingly easy to do!

We have done this successfully on our homestead, and it’s a joy to watch.

The Benefits of Raising Baby Chicks with a Surrogate Mother

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It’s a lot of work to raise baby chicks yourself. You have to make sure they have plenty of food and water, and that they’re not too hot or too cold. You have to clean the brooder, clean up the constant dust caused by the chicks and their bedding and, when they’re old enough, you have to worry about introducing the new chicks to your existing flock.

However, when you have a surrogate mother, all that work disappears! If you have a broody hen in your flock, you can use her to raise baby chicks. And, there are a number of benefits to letting her do the heavy lifting.

1. Mama Keeps the Baby Chicks Warm

When you have a surrogate mother to raise baby chicks, you don’t have to fuss with a heat lamp or radiant heat brooder. Mama keeps the chicks warm and cozy whenever they get cold! She’ll stay fluffed out, even when she’s walking with the chicks around the coop or yard, so that she can warm up her chicks at a moment’s notice.

2. Mama Teaches Life Skills

A surrogate mother who’s raising baby chicks will teach them which foods are good to eat, and which aren’t. She’ll teach them how to hunt for bugs, where to find the best shelter, how to take cover from potential predators, and everything else that chicks need to know to survive into adulthood.

3. Mama Protects the Baby Chicks

I’ve seen our Mama hens attack our dog, Rio, when he got too close to the babies. They’ve attacked other hens that were a bit too pushy. A few have even tried to attack me when I tried to pick up the chicks for a closer inspection.

Most Mama hens will protect their baby chicks ferociously.

4. Mama Integrates the Chicks Into the Flock

Introducing new chicks into an existing flock can be problematic if you don’t do it right. However, your surrogate Mama raising baby chicks will do this for you. She’ll make sure none of the other chickens bully the babies, and that they get enough feed.

5. You Can Choose the Chicks You Want

One of the biggest advantages to letting a surrogate mother raise baby chicks is that you can choose exactly which chicks you want to add to your flock. You can order chicks online, or purchase them through your local feed store, co-op, or TSC. And as soon as you get them, you can slip them under your broody surrogate. We’ll cover how to do this in just a minute!

6. It Makes Her Happy

We can argue all day long about whether or not animals experience emotions. But after watching and raising a large flock for several years, it’s my opinion that they do.

For example, I saw one of our hens, Buffy, mourn when our rooster, Bart, was killed by predators. Buffy was his special lady, and when he died she looked for him for days, and was listless and uninterested in socializing with the rest of the flock.

I’ve seen what I believe to be pride in the subtle expressions and body language of new mother hens. And, a surrogate broody is no exception. If you give her chicks to hatch, it’s going to make her happy.

Our Experience Raising Baby Chicks with a Surrogate Broody Hen

This spring, one of our Australorps, Isla, went broody. As soon as I was sure she had committed to sitting on the nest, I slipped six eggs under her that I wanted to hatch. All was well and good, I thought.

However, four days before the eggs were due to hatch, I found several baby chicks already poking their sweet little heads out of her feathers! A quick check showed that four eggs had hatched, and six eggs hadn’t.

Here’s what happened: when Isla went broody, she was already sitting on four eggs when I slipped the six under her several days later. So, those were the first four that hatched. The problem was the next day, Isla abandoned the six remaining eggs in order to care for her baby chicks. And, those eggs were just days away from hatching.

I was in the coop when I saw her leave the nest, and I figured she probably wasn’t going to come back for the eggs before they all died. Fortunately, one of our Sussexes, Laia, had just gone broody a few days earlier. So, I gathered up the six remaining eggs and put them under her, hoping against hope she’d hatch them out. And she did!

A few days later, four of the six eggs hatched successfully. And even though she’d only been broody a few days, she was happy to raise the baby chicks.

How to Raise Baby Chicks with a Surrogate Mother Successfully

There are a few dos and don’ts when it comes to successfully matching a broody hen with adopted chicks.

Set Up Your Brooder

Before you introduce the baby chicks to your surrogate broody, get your brooder box equipment out, just in case. If the mother rejects the chicks, you’ll have to brood them yourself and they will need a warm up pretty quickly. So, save yourself some stress and get your equipment out so you’re ready to go if things don’t go as planned.

Use Day-Old Chicks

Only use very young chicks with a broody surrogate. Older chicks will likely be rejected, and the broody hen might even attack them.

You Don’t Have to Wait for a Full Broody Cycle

Hens have to sit on a nest of eggs for 21 days until they hatch. And, I read somewhere that a hen’s mothering hormones don’t really kick in until the end of that 21 day cycle. So, the thinking goes, if you put baby chicks under a broody hen before she’s been sitting for 21 days, her instincts won’t tell her to take care of them.

This is not true. It’s not true from my personal experience, and it’s not true from countless accounts online from backyard chicken keepers. If your hen has been broody for a few days, she’ll likely adopt and raise baby chicks successfully.

Introduce Baby Chicks During the Day

When your chicks come in, take them out to the coop and show them to your broody hen one at a time. Let her look at them and hear them peeping. Then, slowly put the chick under her. As you slide it in, remove one of the eggs she’s sitting on.

Let her look at each of the chicks for several seconds before you slide them into the nest. Each time you slide in a chick, take out an egg.

Look for signs that she’s adopting the chicks. Hopefully she’ll start making soft clucks to the baby chicks, flatten her body a bit more, and fluff her feathers even more so that they stay warm.

If she acts aggressive in any way, such as kicking the chicks out of the nest or pecking at them with her beak, take them out of the nest immediately and put them in the brooder. It’s best to keep an eye on Mama for several hours the first day, just to make sure she’s really going to accept the chicks.

It’s likely the new family will stay on or very close to the nest the first day or two. When they do start walking around, make sure Mama is being attentive to the chicks, clucking at them regularly and keeping them protected from other flock members. Chances are if she adopted the baby chicks she will raise them well, but occasionally you can have a hen that’s not a good mother. If you suspect the Mama is not taking excellent care of the baby chicks, it might be best to put them in the brooder.

And that’s really all there is to it!

Last Word

I love watching a Mama hen take care of her chicks, whether they’re adopted or not. But letting a broody surrogate hen raise baby chicks means you get all the benefits with none of the hard work!

I’d love to hear back from you. Have you ever let a broody surrogate take care of adopted chicks? How did it turn out?