Roscoe and Bitsy's chicks are 5weeks old and in the process of weaning. Roscoe has been mating with Bitsy and she has been eating calcium which she does prior to laying. I have the nestbox down . I don'd know what to do. Should I put the nesting back up and let them have another clutch or wait and see what happens?

If you want to try to prevent them from laying more eggs you can apply some hormone control techniques: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... mones.html

But if she's already eating more calcium it might already be too late, and since you have unweaned babies you can't apply the hormone control too drastically because you don't want to dampen them down so much that they stop feeding the babies. I've found that the best time to start working on next-clutch prevention is when the oldest chick is about two weeks old.

If I put the nesting back up and she lays will they continue to feed current babies?

They should. It will primarily be the father's job to take care of the older chicks.

I had noticed with last year's clutches that as the chicks were getting closer to being weaned that Roscoe was doing more of the feeding. Bitsy would ignore them at times. Nature is certainly phenomenal! I am going to put the nesting up today. Roscoe has been working on finding her a place to lay. I had moved them all to a different cage when I realized they were in breeding mode.

Good luck with the new clutch!

Just make sure you have enough time and forces for all the breeding stuff. I ended up with 2 clutches (born 3 months apart) and it has been super hard. Also, my hen ended up laying soft shelled egg and had trouble with her health (but she has laid a lot of eggs even without the box)
my hen never continued to feed chicks after about 3-4 weeks old. father did, and he did it so-so well (close to the fledging time and after). I was trying to handfeed but they didn't want it from me (with a few exceptions)