Here are pictures of chicks hatching under my broody hen:
I caught the timing on this one perfectly... it literally hatched out in my hand!
Welcome to the world baby! Good thing you're a girl...we won't be eating you!
After about 48 hours the hen was done sitting on the nest. We have too many cats who like to dine on baby chicks to let the broody hens run loose. So, I moved the whole brood to my small PVC chicken tractor where they are safe and Momma hen has some room to 'range' and teach the little peeps how to be chickens. She's a wonderful momma. Ya know the saying about getting your feathers ruffled? Well, it must have been inspired by a broody hen! She sure got her feathers ruffled when the flock rooster came over to investigate all the peeping. No way was she going to let him mess with her babies!
On the 25th-26th we had three more chicks hatch, all pullets! Two are left in the incubator, one has already pipped through the shell and the other is working on it. That'll be 14 total from this hatch. Phew! MORE chickens, just what I needed (hmm...). So far the running total is 11 pullets, 3 roosters. They are black sex links (Rhode Island Red daddy x Barred Rock momma) so I can tell gender at hatch which is really nice. I am getting GREAT odds right now, I'm feeling so lucky I've debated going and buying a lottery ticket.
Now that this hatch is done I'll have a little break, then in about a week and a half my Jersey Black Giant's chicks should start hatching. I pulled a real switch-a-roo on her and stuck Rio Grande Wild Turkey eggs (from a neighbor who raises them) and some Americauna eggs under her. Poor girl, her kids are gonna hatch and not look a thing like her!
1 comment:
G’Day Elizabeth,
As my Australian buddies would say, “Yeah, right mate, more bloody chicken stories. Crikey mate, well and truly good with it, let’s talk about the bloody milk cow, right?”
I have shared some of your dialogs and photos with my mates down under, and they all feel you’re very Aussie in your closeness to the earth. I swear, once I get my PA credentials, Karen and I will definitely head back. When that happens, you, Kendal and the kids will have to visit… and you’ll definitely see the wisdom and benefit of life in Australia... you likely won't return to the U.S.! I have never been homesick before, but after spending 18-months living the good life down under, I am well and truly smitten.
Now, if I was still in Iraq, all my LN (local national) buddies would say, “Let’s eat!” Did you know that Iraq was the largest importer of U.S. chicken right up to when our crazy government put the trade embargo in place? Yep, we sure taught Saddam a lesson… before we went in there and killed so many Iraqi men, we first deprived all the truly innocent Iraqi citizens… women, children and the aged an affordable source of healthy protein. God bless America!
The photo of you holding the hatching egg is so cool. I am most impressed. The miracle of new life. In Anatomy and physiology class (and lab), we deciphered and learned quite a bit about chromosomal arrangement, fetal development, and animal mitosis and meiosis. We studied human, sheep, pig, frog and grasshopper oogenesis and development. I am here to tell you that at various stages of development, the human fetus is indistinguishable from those other animals.
I believe in God, but I also believe God created evolution. As a matter of fact, I now have a very firm appreciation that evolution is simply any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next. Go figure!
Love,
Dad
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