Chicks & Broody Hens: Growth Week 1-3 

They are a "heavy feathered" breed which basically means they are wearing puffa jackets! That doesn't explain the happy , friendly nature though 🙂. We just like them, friendly, useful and fun creatures

So nice of you, thanks

Thank you 🙂

They really are a fantastic, friendly breed - we've never regretted getting them 🙂

That's great Chicks can take 24 hours from first pipping to actually hatching, then they need to recover so she did a good job.

❤🐤🐓❤

Thank you so much 😊

They do grow really quickly

It is a strangely bizarre and comical accident. If any injury or problems had resulted I wouldn't have published it but as the chick was perfectly OK it's just a funny acrobatic accident!

Thank you so much!

That's really kind, thank you

So do we 🙂

Thank you so much!

Thank you

Thank you!

Good luck!

They are very healthy weights just very, very feathery 🤣🤣🤣 There are a few reasons they all range well together. First they are docile breed. Second they were hatched and raised together and finally they have LOTS of room so can wander around each other with having to actually cross paths. Thank you so much for your compliment

They are lovely

Dorry to hear that

They really are the perfect self reliant birds Dakota I agree. Natural broodies, great egg layers, wonderful table birds. Placid friendly hens. What's not to like?

@@EnglishCountryLife exactly I live in the south in a Indian community so they was once sold on the regular for like $1 each now they run from $3.49 to $5 I’m like what !!! This is crazy and not only that they have became pricey but they became hard to find and it’s really noticeable in my tribe it’s like few have them but mainly a lot of the tribe raised Rhode Island or New Hampshire would love for this beed to come back Orpington are a all time favorite

@@dakotabrewer9102 I understand why Rhodes 8sland Reds and Hampshire would be popular but you lose that broodiness to be able to raise the next generation for you. I totally agree with you but then I'm biased 😉

Thanks so much

😁

Thank you!

Thank you!

@@EnglishCountryLife u welcome No problem 😊

Thanks

Thank you

Thank you

They don't mind being petted if you have treats!

@@EnglishCountryLife Chickies are smart! I had chickens I could pick up and cuddle. I was a child, had the time, patience and the huge heart of love for these sweeties.

@@tjwarburton Creatures quickly learn when someone cares about them 😉

We let them out into the main run within 3 days of hatch, but carefully supervised to begin with. Generally cockerels just seem bemused by chicks 😉

Usually they raise chicks for 10 to 12 weeks but it varies a great deal

Hi, given chickens eat anything, we put the whole flock on chick crumb until the chicks are large enough for layers. The chicks can gave leafy material, wheat etc. from a week old

If you put all the flock on chicks 🐥 crumbles my question is if the adult hens will keep laying eggs?

If the chicks have a brood hen looking after them they can free range with the other hens as soon as the brood hen is happy to take them outside. If they don't have a brood hen, put their coop and run in the free range area so that the chicks can see the older hens and they can get used to them being around. In this arrangement we will then remove the run sometime between 4 and 6 weeks allowing the chicks to free range with the hens. Telling rooster from hens becomes more apparent as the chicks age. Some people have a talent for spotting them, but as I want both hens and roosters to grow, I wait until it becomes obvious. In general, roosters have a more upright carriage, have thicker legs and form wattles quicker. With Orpingtons I can tell the gender of 10% at week 2, 20% at week 3 and so on until all of them are obvious at week 11. Does that help?

Hi this video should tell you about the foods we give to the chickens ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oz9_nYdiZ1s.html

Hi Tiffy, we move all broody hens to a separate coop with run to prevent other hens trying to lay in the same place which disturbs the clutch.

They need a chick crumb or micro pellet at first. Layers pellets have too much calcium and not enough protein. As they grow they can move onto growers pellets but layers only when they start laying eggs

We let ours into the flock when the chicks are 2 days old. We always supervise the first day but our flock are very gentle and relaxed. Other birds can be more difficult

Thank you

With our birds we put them together after one or two days. The hen will keep the chicks safe & the chicks learn their place in the flock

@@EnglishCountryLife brilliant, thank you!

Hi. yes they do need a special feed which you can see in this video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NsiLJlVwcO8.html It is different from adult food as they need a different combination of nutrients as minerals but the video will explain why. I hope that helps.

Are the chicks hatched by a broody?

@@EnglishCountryLife I have two brooding orpingtons sitting on 5 eggs total. In a few days if everything has gone well they should hatch. Will I need to remove them from the coop and run or will they be safe? My last comment was a friend of mine gave me two chicks and the hens attacked them when I tried to integrate them.

@@johnfoster7922 Two hens can be problematic, it's usually best to give each broody their own coop if possible.If hatch is imminent though it is best not to move them

Eating the eggs is definitely not normal and a very bad sign of her being a successful broody. Sorry. The worst situation is if she deliberately broke and ate the egg. It's also possible that she acccidentally stood on the egg and broke it, only eating the egg once this happens (lightly less worse) If I were you I would be testing the fertility of your cockerel to make sure the rooster is doing his job. If he's not capable of fertilising the eggs your hens could be sitting on unfertilised eggs which will never hatch. We have a video that will talk you through the process: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aop_G9uzOVA.html

Hi Andy! I don't know the South African market but do search locally for "Buff Orpingtons"

Thank you!

Hi Bilal, we have made s guide to chicken feeding here.... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NsiLJlVwcO8.html

Sadly no, we don't ship internationally - it's very complex to do, sorry

She's scratching out thatch so they can access fresh grass, scratching for grit to grind food in the gizzard, and digging for small worms so it's multi-functional 😁

@@EnglishCountryLife what do they eat when they aren't being fed by humans?

@@laurelrockefeller They are pretty omnivorous. They eat seeds, worms, slugs, beetles, mice if they can get them, daisies, chickweed, buttercups......anything really

@@EnglishCountryLife So mom is scratching in the dirt for them and showing them that they can eat whatever they find in the dirt?

@@laurelrockefeller She will show them what they can eat in the dirt. There are some things they can't eat e.g. High acidity foods, thorny things etc and she does guide them. They also avoid anything that is reputed to be poisonous such as foxgloves etc.

We do sell fertilised eggs in our eBay shop. rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-53481-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5575378759&campid=5338273189&customid=&icep_item=393266066146&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229508&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg&toolid=11111

Goshawks no, we do have Marsh Harriers, buzzards, kites, herons, sparrowhawk's, kestrels, Merlin's, barn tawny and little owls amongst others, but no goshawks that we've seen.

Hi Evie! Our Orpingtons do really well with other breeds and are very placid. We don't keep bantams so can't help there I'm afraid. We keep Buffs because its easier to source unrelated cockerels for breeding

@@EnglishCountryLife due to their placid nature, do they themselves get henpecked a lot?

@@eviestainton8384 Not with our team. We have have Orpingtons in the top half of the hierarchy other breeds in the middle and with youngest Orpingtons and Old English Pheasant at the bottom but they all get along really well. Gannet at the Head of the Flock doesn't tolerate disputes from the youngsters. The hierarchy seems to work on age here

I know your comment was a long time ago but if it helps, you can get a bantam version of the Orpington breed - the same, but smaller ☺️

Hi, the best way is to find a breeder close to you as its very hard to transport eggs by air. They will survive posting if handled carefully and transported by rail or van

As a general rule we have found that the sooner hens with chicks are allowed back with the flock the better as other hens might be curious but are less likely to see the new chicks as a threat to the hierarchy. However there are two factors that are really important to help you make a decision. The first is how much space your chickens have during daylight hours. A hen with chicks will not normally roam with the flock but instead roam near to the flock. They need the ability to take the chicks away from any aggressive hens. If you have this space there will be less of an issue. The second is the nature of your full size hens. Some hens are quite docile and calm while others are aggressive and always wanting to show power. If your hens are calm then it's unlikely to be a problem. If your hens always want to show dominance it may be a problem but this isn't something I can judge for you from a distance. As a suggestion, why don't you try a test by letting the bantam and chicks out roughly 1 hour before roosting time or even 30 minutes before? It's a limited timeframe before they want to go back to the coops anyway. It might be worth a try.

English Country Life Thank you for sharing your knowledge ☺️ I have 2 barred rocks who like to show their dominance from time to time. I’ll try your suggestion, and keep an eye on them when they first join the group.

@@valleygirl8171 Good luck and please let me know how you get on

Broodies will happily hatch any kind of chicken, ducks, turkeys, Guinea Fowl.... She'll happily mother everything.

@@EnglishCountryLife thanks for the reply. That was fast reply.

@@meoff7602 You are very welcome. Our channels purpose is to help provide information.

Yes of course - at one to two days old. Never had a problem. We don't breed aggressive birds 🙂

We have 4 orpington. 1 rooster and 3 hens. We are thinking of separate them from others and breed them by themselves.

At the time we had 6 breeding hens and she had 12 eggs so it's likely 2 were laid by her. Cinnamon can cover a max if 18 eggs but others such as Frankie can cover 14 max. Cinnamon did hatch 8 of the 12 eggs she had 😁

@@EnglishCountryLife How can you tell which chicks are Cinnamon's biological offspring? I love watching Cinnamon on twitter -- everyday!

@@laurelrockefeller The honest answer is that we can't tell which are biologically Cinnamon's and which aren't. The female line are all related so there are only minor nuances between them. It's only the breeding male that is unrelated and we only keep one each year so it fathers all the chucjs for the following year. As a result the chicks are very, very similar.

@@EnglishCountryLife Makes sense. :) Is there a reason there's only one rooster for all the hens? I heard something to the effect that roosters tend to fight each other very aggressively for the hens?

@@laurelrockefeller as our roosters are raised together from chicks they have spread sorted out dominance long before the stage that would cause injury. The reason is simply we don't want to keep so many hens and multiple roosters cause featherwear. It's really for the health of the hens

Hi Ruby. Can you describe where in the video the tapping noises are please?

I'm glad you like them

They're surprisingly robust at that age, but it was a bit of a "Whoa!" moment 🤣🤣

Great question! We label the eggs to tell us a number of things including which coop it was originally laid in, which hen laid it or in the case of a number which egg it is in the clutch. The numbers are useful because sometimes broodhens push "bad" eggs out of the nest. If we find an egg out of the nest we make a note of the number and pop it back in. If an egg is then found outside the nest we know if the 1st occurrence was an accident because the 2nd occurrence has a different number, or it was deliberately pushed out because it has the same number. If it's the same number we'll remove it. Does that help?

Cute huh?

@@EnglishCountryLife yes for some reason the mom almost ate the chick

@@ethan_sl The chick was never in harms way. The broody did make contact and was not making an aggressive move. With the broody being so big and the chicks being so small, if there was aggression the chick would not survive.

@@EnglishCountryLife oh wow ok

We are in England

@@EnglishCountryLife how do they send live Orpington chicken aboard for breeders ?

@@ggurwlcom420 I'm not sure. We don't transport any chickens either in the UK or abroad.