Our Chickens

This post is a little out of order, so bear with me. We have two separate pens of chickens. The first batch we named for the "Chicken Run" characters. The second set were given to us by our pastor and his wife. They are three Buff Orpington hens and one Rhode Island rooster. We call them the Andrews Sisters and Rhodie. The Sisters are a really good sized bird, and the Chicken Run Gang are smaller birds.

We wanted to hatch some baby buffs, but our buffs weren't setting on the eggs. Meanwhile, faithful Babs was setting each day on nothing. We decided to transfer the eggs over to the Chicken Run Gang. We placed 10 eggs under her. Later, Ginger also began to help with the setting. Sunday, May 1st, we came home from church and found that four of our eggs had hatched. The next day four more hatched.

Ginger keeping her babies warm.
No need for a heat lamp with mama around.

The last egg to hatch on Monday.
The remaining two never hatched.

The mamas would peck at the food and then drop it on the floor for the babies.
It was fascinating to watch the teaching and learning process.

Emilie holding one of the little peeps.

By Tuesday, all the babies were down in the yard learning to scratch for bugs in the grass.

All the adult birds took part in teaching the babies.

Now we jump back in time.
Here is Emilie by the fountain we set up by the pool.

We had experimented with having the Chicken Run Gang by the pool.
This was a permanent cage we set up before we received the Andrews Sisters.

It didn't take much time for them to eat all the weeds in this bed.

Emilie just loves her chickens.

"You lookin' at me?" says Rocky.

It was pretty cool having the birds better protected and sheltered, but they scratched and flung dirt all over the pool deck. It didn't take long for us to move them back to their tractor and dismantle this cage. We did take advantage of the chicken manure and tilled it into the soil and planted our garden in the same spot. It was after we moved them that we let Babs set on a clutch of eggs. The following pictures are of her setting.

Babs

We placed ten eggs under Babs who was faithfully setting on nothing day after day.

Babs the devoted mother hen

Rhodie the Rhode Island Red
He's pretty, but very protective of his girls.
Patrick is the only one who is able to go inside the cage to feed, water, and collect eggs.

I'm sad to report that when our babies were nine days old, opossums got in the cage. We lost three babies that night. Then, just before they were two weeks old, a fox broke into the cage and killed four more. We are now down to only one baby left. Of course, it will probably end up being a rooster.

Farm living is rough :~(