You can try slipping the new chicks under mom during the night, so when she wakes up she is a MOM. :) Other people (Sheila?) have reported success by taking AWAY mama's two or three chicks for a few minutes (let mom and chicks get distressed a bit and holler for each other), then returning her chicks PLUS the new ones to mom. Chickens can't count, so the babies were all accepted. But that was with a hen that had more than one chick, so be careful. Whichever method you use, be careful and watch the chicks like a hawk. Be ready to swoop in and rescue the babies if the hen attacks them. I've tried to get hens to adopt chicks in the past, and while the chicks were kinda willing, the hens would freak out and RUN from the baby--all I could figure was that the hen thought she was encroaching on another hens' babies, and wanted to get the heck OUT of there before an angry mama got back. Hens can normaly handle a clutch of 5-7 chicks. More than that and she may not be able to keep them all warm enough or watch them properly when they are out in the yard and active. Watch the other birds in your flock, they can sometimes get aggressive and/or jealous of the new family and attack them--and mama hen can't be everywhere at once to protect every chick. Velvet ~:>

You're right: it is definitely not a Hen and Chicks (Sempervivum sp.) I wouldn't expect it to be hardy in you zone either.

There are at least two kinds of 'Hen and Chicks': Echeveria and Sempervivum, The former does not die after blooming. However, the main rosette will dessicate and die after blooming in the genus Sempervivum. The pups (chicks) will keep on living until they bloom in two-three years. You do not need to 'mess with them', but you can pluck out the dead rosettes from the clumps. Since Echeveria would not survive your winters, I presume you planted Semps. They like to be crowded, and you can grow them as a mat: Practice benign neglect, and they will thrive. Happy Growing!

Lol right Rina! I love the top dressing and I believe I read somewhere about it causing water retention too but still decided to go with it because it makes it so much easier to get the plants how you want them. There was a lot of good advice given on my first post which I followed except for the potting mix which I know is one of the most important things but I did make very sure they drained well before planting them I would like to clarify I got all but the first pictured of these plants the day before posting these and repotted from their damp 100% soil, after letting all but the jades roots dry out because I just cleaned their roots off today ( and learned I actually have 3 jade plants YAY ) Rina - Sounds like I'm going to be re-potting again, The layer of rocks is just to keep the soil and smaller rock layer from slipping out of the fairly large holes I drilled in myself and making messes, but like I said It almost drains too well for my liking I dumped 2 cups of water in the layered pot I put mama in to test it out and it was like I just dumped the cup out without anything to catch it.. I'll have to get a video next week if this humidity ever goes away. But I put <2 handfuls of soil in the entire mix for mama which really wasn't much I am most confident in her pot I may have to find and put a healthy semp in with her just to see. Most of the rocks are about half the size of a Canadian dime. They we're in full sun where I bought the new ones this time, but I do have them on the far side of my patio set which doesn't get dappled sun but is half shaded and I slowly moved the mama there and the baby hasn't quite made it outside yet. Thank you for the advice about the jade, I just took it out of the soil which was dry but I'd rather be able to see how its coming along anyway. Chef - Glad to hear your plants are on their way to being happy and healthy :) I'm still pretty new to Germany and I'm not sure what turface might be called here I'll have to see if the PXtra sells it but I've been using "granulat" which translates to granules, they're about the size of Himalayan salt, Lava rocks which will fit into a bottle cap and small rocks like I said earlier are pretty small. The thought of not having soil just blows my mind lol, I understand very little mixed well into something but none at all... but you are the experts and it's been really wet the last few days which is fairly common here unfortunately, so as soon as I can I will be uprooting them again to sift though the soil and looking for some turface or another equivalent.