It is very important to keep your sitting hen away from other chickens.   Unfortunately, I learned the hard way.

I miscalculated the hatch date on my white Silkie’s eggs and had another hen and her 4 month old chick in the same yard.   I usually go outside pretty much when it is daylight just to make sure everyone is still there and no one is in a distressed situation.    But, my husband had the day off and we slept-in and then ate breakfast.

When I checked on my sitting hen, she had hatched out three chicks and two of them were about 15 inches from her nest and were dead.  I suspect there was a fight over the chicks.  The same thing happened to my neighbor the very same day.  I was so upset to find the perfectly healthy chicks dead.

Sometimes you make decisions that end up biting you in the butt.  I only have four adult white Silkies so I was trying to keep them in a separate yard to ensure the eggs would be fertilized only by my white rooster.  When the one white Silkie hen became broody, I moved the rooster and the other two hens out into the large Silkie yard after I  moved the other roosters out.

But, the two white hens didn’t seem to adjust well after two days.  They were sleeping in the middle of the yard instead of going into the house with the other hens.  They were also being picked on by the other hens.  The whole pecking order thing, I guess.  So,  I gave in and put them back into the pen with the broody hen thinking there was still a few days before the chicks would hatch.  I was thinking “I will think about it tomorrow” like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.

So…….be sure and separate your broody hen with her eggs from your other hens.  If they fight over the babies, there is a good chance the babies will get injured or die.   I knew Silkie hens would steal each others eggs and baby chicks because they are excellent mothers but I had no idea they would want them so badly that the chick would end up getting killed.  So sad.