We got baby chicks hatching out!

Joe miscalculated how long our hen had been setting. We went out to candle the eggs and heard some cheeping. We are such bad chicken parents. We didn't even know how many eggs she had. Turns out that there are only 4, but we're still excited. Any advice on first timers? We did raise the chickens we have by hand since they were a day old, but I want momma hen to take care of these. The nest box is about 2 1/2 ft off the ground, do we need to move momma and chicks to the ground? Buy chick starter? We don't free range our chickens because there are too many dogs around. Thanks for any advice you can give.

If they are in a closed spaceI sould mover her closer to the ground and put out chicke starter and water in a shallow dish or small chicken water. We had ours in an out building with one of them and she tookcare of them as long as we kept water and starter out there and they did fine.

Ok. We weren't sure if she would take care of them if we moved her and them. We'll move them closer to the ground. We still have the feeder and waterer from when we first started with the day old chicks. Thanks Amy.

She will take care of them. She will get an attitude and a half. My daughter could not go into the building. The mother hen would flog her every time. I had to do and she would except no one else. I moved the christmas tree box down from the top shelf to the floor and she did the rest. She runied that christmas tree but got 9 beatuiful babies from the deal. I put eggs under her to get more. I gave her 12 and 9 hatched.

Next time I'll place eggs under the broody hens. This was our first time, so I'm trying to learn.

Just went and checked and so far we have on buff hatched out.