Just sharing a fun experience.

We have a brooding chicken that never leaves the nest box where we collect our eggs.  Wanting to add a few more chickens, we purchased 7 chicks, each two days old.  For a couple hours we placed them in a shoebox near the brooding hen so she could hear their little peeps.  Thats what chicks do before they completely break out of the egg.  By placing them nearby it helps convince the brooding hen she has chicks about to hatch.  After dark, when the birds were all sleeping (not that they didn't notice us) we went into the coop and placed the new chicks under our brooding hen while at the same time removing the fake eggs we had placed under her.  We had been told that placing the chicks in after dark was very important.  We shut them in so the little ones couldn't get out to where the big birds could harm them.  This morning, after it was clear "mom" had accepted them and the experiment was a great success.  Today we moved them all to a pen by themselves.  If we had disturbed the brooding bird by moving her prior to introducing the chicks, she may not have accepted them.  Now "Mom" thinks she has new chicks and we don't have to raise the little ones.  Its a sweet deal for us and very cute to watch. 

So next time you have a brooding chicken, try this method out if you are wanting to add some new birds to your flock.