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Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Day 9 of possible baby watch!

 Ummmm, no, not me.  Perish the thought!  Can you imagine Dh and I new parents at the age of, well, ahem, grandparents.  We'll just leave that there.  

Nope, our day 9 baby watch is for a possible broody hen.  I keep throwing in "possible", because last year we had a couple of hens that failed and failed badly.  We did have one that managed to hatch 2 chicks from the 20 eggs she had under her.  The number was her choice not ours.  She  kept letting hens in to lay.  It was a mess.  We couldn't get her separated from everyone else and it was just crazy.  It wasn't the number of laying boxes.  We had three.  It was just a preference on the other hens part, and her unwillingness to defend her nest.  Still she ended up being a good mama to the two that hatched; one hen and one rooster.  The rooster now runs a coop of his own at a neighbors house.   The hen is a part of our flock.  

Currently we have a hen sitting on 16 eggs.  These are due to hatch around the 3rd of April.  So far she's been fairly constant in her attention to the eggs.  She's on the nest each time I go out to check.  She's steady so far.  In addition to that, she seems to be defending the nest from the other hens.  Our egg count hasn't fallen off as of yet.  This tells me she's keeping the other hens from entering the nesting box where she sits.  She's like "I've got my own kids to worry about, I'm not watching yours too!".  Now all of this is subject to change, and probably will since I said something to the world (well or my few readers, lol).  

There are things we look out for this time of year to let us know when a hen is Broody.  When she's wanting to sit on eggs and become a mama.  The first tell tale sign is she will refuse to leave the nest and can actually get aggressive to anyone( or any hen) trying to gain access to the nest.  Now when I say aggressive, I don't mean violent, but I do mean she will peck at my hand to warn me off.  She never hurts us, even when we insist on lifting her up to look underneath.  Why are we looking underneath her?  Well another sign of a broody hen is she will pull out all of her breast feathers to better keep the eggs warm.  Lastly, she'll almost seem trance like.  Hens will rarely get off the eggs except for a break or two to stretch their legs, eat and drink.  Aside from that she sits. In fact, today I didn't latch the run gate well enough and all the chickens got out.  All but her.  She stayed; rock solid, on those eggs.  Now the others just went on a free for all and bout trashed my garden.  GRRRRR!  But she held her ground. 


 I tell you I won't make that mistake again, FYI. 

Last year we ended up investing in an incubator because it seemed all of our hens were insane.  It's a very nice incubator, and came in very handy last year.  It's here should we need it.  At this point, if this hen decides to leave the nest, we'll transfer the eggs to the incubator to finish out their gestation. All that being said, we're allowing her to hatch because...

1) Takes one less thing off our list!  It isn't a crazy amount, but having chicks under your care adds feeding, watering, temp watch, brooder cleaning etc, to our to do list.  While we can if we have to, it's nicer not having to!  Plus it means no brooder box in the house, and not having to use the incubator means not adding to the power bill!

2)  They will already be established as part of the flock,  That means no trying to get them to know each other, having to keep them in a separate coop, etc.  We're wanting to bring up another Rooster to join Lucky in the coop,  This will make it easier.   

3)  This Mama hen will mother these babies for a while, and will defend them with her life if need be.  I've seen it.  Well I've seen evidence of it.  We have a Bantam hen we call "Big Mama".  She broods very easily.  She's hatched out both Bantam chicks and Full size chicks,  She hatched out Lucky.  I went out one morning a few years ago, and saw evidence of an animal getting into the bantam coop where she had 3 babies.  It had found a way by chewing threw the wood in a place not readily seen.  From what I could tell, she was on the nest with 2 of her babies; one full size, one Bantam.  The third had just hatched, but was too weak from hatching to be able to get back under her.  It was taken, unfortunately by whatever got in.  Big Mama did everything she could to defend it and her other two.  Feathers were everywhere!  She had seriously put up a fight, but could only defend the babies already under her protection.  


A sweeter story happened a few years ago.  We had a full size hen hatch out about 14 chicks.  They had gotten old enough to venture out, but couldn't figure out how to get back in the coop once out.  It started raining, hard.  I went out to the coops and saw this poor hen, soaking wet, laying over the chicks who were perfectly dry.  She had stayed out in the rain to keep them protected.  She looked so pitiful.  I grabbed her up and tossed her in the coops and began grabbing chicks by the handful to toss in there with her.  She freaked out at first, but quickly realized what I was doing and took over the job of ushering in the ones I tossed thru.  In short order we had everyone in shelter, including Mama and they were safe and dry.  

So, here's hoping for some babies soon.  We'll see if she can pull it off.  Anyone want to lay odds?

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