How to get your broody hen to adopt new baby chicks (or ducklings)

We had been noticing for the past few weeks that one of our chickens, a Golden Laced Wyandotte, stayed in her nesting box day and night.  When we would pick her up and bring her out she would peck around a bit and then end up back in that nesting box.  Unfortunately, the other chickens were not too happy.  Even though I have about six other nesting boxes, they all want to use the same one. 

After doing some reading on getting a broody chicken to adopt baby chicks, I decided to try this myself.  I went to our local farm store and talked to the gal that worked there (they are great at giving advice).  She told me to 1) move the hen to another location because the other chickens will eat the baby chicks and 2) To put the baby chicks under the hen at night so she doesn't see what I'm doing.  So I bought four day-old Cornish Cross Broilers and one Spotted Sussex and took her advice.

I moved the hen (and the nesting box) into our garage as soon as we arrived home from the farm store just to make sure that she would stay in the nesting box.  She stayed!  After the sun went down and it was completely dark, my daughter and I brought the five chicks to the garage and put them under the hen.  I figured she had to know what was going on because the little chicks were chirping away.  But they quickly quieted as they snuggled up under the warmth of the Momma hen.  We left and went to bed and this is what we found the next morning: 

Momma hen with her new adopted chicks.

We found a very very happy Momma hen.  The nice thing about having her raise the chicks is she does all the work.  No need for heat lamps or to make sure the cats and dog stay away.  She has turned out to be very protective;  Our cats know to stay away.

After about a week the momma hen will take the chicks outside of the nesting area on little excursions to look for bugs and other good things to eat.

They sure are cute!

One thing I hear about Cornish Cross Broilers is they have a lot of problems with their legs as a result of getting too big too fast (they are a breed of meat chicken and most likely the breed of chicken you buy at the grocery store).  They are fast growers and it generally takes them about 7 or 8 weeks to get up to weight.  Getting them out early like this, and having a Momma hen raise them will ensure they develop into healthy birds.  

OK, so I mentioned "ducklings" in the title of this post, because I read that hens will adopt ducklings, the same way they adopts chicks as I've described.  Our local farm store will get in some ducklings within the next few weeks and if for some reason I have another hen that becomes broody I will try this again.  Please note, the hen has to be broody for this to work.  When a hen is broody, she will sit all day and night in her nesting box and never leave.  If you try and stick your hands in the nesting box, she will nip at you.  She does NOT want to leave!