The "other orange hen" diligently sat her nest and hatched out 11 lovely yellow chicks! They are 4 days old. Today's the first day I've let them all out of the crate loose in the kennel. Everyone had a great time. Mom flies against the side of the kennel screaming whenever the dogs walk by. The dogs, of course, think this is a lot of fun *sigh*. It will be interesting to see what colors the chicks turn out to be. I bought the hens from a local farmer - no specific breed. They joined my Leghorn and Old English Game Fowl roosters. We'll see!
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Pictures pictures :))))
Broody hens that are loose make good puppy trainers! This makes me smile, thinking of the chickies. Can hardly wait til you have some pics!
We haven't always kept roosters but in 1998 we had our first huge batch of chickies because one of our hens had gone AWOL and came back with a banty rooster. Wonderful boy! He was so gentle with his big harem.
Two hens went broody and hatched between them twenty-some chicks. Our Anatolians at that time had all grown up with chickens freeranging all around so the chaos really was wonderful. Some got beat up on anyway due to the protective, pecking and squawking pride of the puffy looking hens. :)
Problem is, over the next several weeks, most of the chicks went through chick sized gaps in the chainmesh areas of our fence and many were killed by neighboring cats. :(
We never had quite as big a hatch after that, and a few years hence, we had more roosters than our hen population could handle. Talk about near nekkid hens! The nice rooster died after a few years. We had no idea how old he was. He had enormous spurs.
We got rid of all the rooster kids he gave us (they were crude and noisy compared to Dad) and since then haven't had an hatches. I miss it. Chickens are wonderful birds.
Our hens slept in the trees too. :)
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