welcome home
we returned home to find a mama hen who apparently had snuck off deep within a thicket of old wild rose bushes near the house before we'd left.
unbeknownst to us, she'd sat tucked away, broody on her nest, all that time we were away, successfully hatching 13-14 chicks! they move too fast and she's so protective that we're having a hard time getting an accurate count - let alone get a decent picture of them all.
they seemed quite brand new and so couldn't have been more than a day or two old when we returned home. and the chicks all vary in color so the other hens must have all 'helped' in stocking her nest full of eggs.
the next day, she moved her whole crew to the other side of the house and into the chicken yard where we can close them in at night, but then they decided to sneak through the hole in the chicken wire into the garden, which is where they are residing for now. mama must have flown over the fence to be with her babies.
so far they haven't done too much damage but i'll have to get to fixing that hole pretty soon. for now, it's kind of fun having them in the garden.
since then, i found another broody hen settled in on a nest of 9 more eggs underneath the feeder in the ram's pen! gosh, wouldn't it be nice if they'd keep doing this so that we didn't have to keep buying chicks?
welcome home
we returned home to find a mama hen who apparently had snuck off deep within a thicket of old wild rose bushes near the house before we'd left.
unbeknownst to us, she'd sat tucked away, broody on her nest, all that time we were away, successfully hatching 13-14 chicks! they move too fast and she's so protective that we're having a hard time getting an accurate count - let alone get a decent picture of them all.
they seemed quite brand new and so couldn't have been more than a day or two old when we returned home. and the chicks all vary in color so the other hens must have all 'helped' in stocking her nest full of eggs.
the next day, she moved her whole crew to the other side of the house and into the chicken yard where we can close them in at night, but then they decided to sneak through the hole in the chicken wire into the garden, which is where they are residing for now. mama must have flown over the fence to be with her babies.
so far they haven't done too much damage but i'll have to get to fixing that hole pretty soon. for now, it's kind of fun having them in the garden.
since then, i found another broody hen settled in on a nest of 9 more eggs underneath the feeder in the ram's pen! gosh, wouldn't it be nice if they'd keep doing this so that we didn't have to keep buying chicks?