So I have a few questions.........
we have inherited a chicken she seems to like being with us, our garden is quite overgrown, she was roosting in a tree. and the kids were feeding her bits of this and that she has access to water.
Long story short after some months our chicken flew over the fence to neighbours garden where neighbour has 2 chickens, she took to locking our chicken up in her chicken house but our chicken always seemed to be being bullied by her chickens and was never allowed to eat and was pecked at etc (although they are all free range every where)
anyway after a couple of months our chicken has come home and has been broody in our garden (totally free range i.e. outside) for probably 2 months now)
Story is she was broody so we started feeding her more intensively, then after about 3 weeks she pushed 14 eggs out of the nest!!! so we got fertilised eggs and put them under her. She promptly pushed out about 7 (which we tried incubating unsuccessfully) and she ended up with 3 under her. One was eaten I suspect by a rat or our other neighbours cat (although it had developed into a recognisable chick) and at least 4 weeks later she is still sitting on 2.
Now I don't know what to do, she is thin but still healthy looking (we are still feeding her twice daily and she gets up once a day to eat interestingly she goes to the neighbour to eat but causes great upset and lots of noise from neighbours 2 chickens - they also scream repeatedly through the fence at her during the day her nest is next to fence) it has taken me ages to see the eggs and when I did they were still warm
i know she needs to get off the eggs but we are scared that she will move next door, we don't know whether to get more fertilised eggs. Would now be a good time to introduce chicks a couple of weeks old instead? Do we have to introduce them gently? Do we need to get chicks that look like her? Do we need to get a hen house and a run? how will she take to being cooped up and how long should we do it for?) (foxes not an issue, frost not an issue) we were thinking about getting 3.
I am also worried about rats, they have been a major problem in this area/on our street, council has been involved neighbour has had rats in her garden and her roof.
We plan to clear out our garden very soon to try and keep them away from us
thanks for any advice or experience.