Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Spring is in the Air

One of the first signs that spring is near is when my begin to lay again regularly and start going broody. This year i was really hoping that one of my domestic hens would go broody so i could sneak some of my pretty olive and maran eggs underneath her.




i had traded for pretty blue hatching eggs as well and was hoping to finally get some blue layers in the mix.  i had no such luck though, i could not get any of my hens to set. 

i did however have a couple wild hens go missing, a few weeks back. i wasn't sure if they were setting on eggs some where or had been lost to a predator, but i was hoping that they would show back up eventually. 


One morning i spotted one of the missing hens and followed her until i watched her diappear into the woods. Took a little while to find her, but eventually i did. She was setting a whole clutch of eggs. i really did not want more wild chickens, but i had no idea how long she had been setting so i didn't want to disturb the eggs.  



When i went to check her a few days later i found one of the eggs had hatched and i could hear peeping coming from the other eggs. So i got my daughter and her friend to help me move the hen, chick and eggs into a safer place. i was afraid that something would hear/smell the new chicks and get them during the night. So we moved her into a nesting box inside the small chicken coop.



When i checked them the next morning i was somewhat shocked to find 15 baby chicks and still a few eggs unhatched!  By the end of the day we had 17 new chicks!!  i have no idea what we are going to do with them all, i just hope i get some hens this year. Last year my attempt to hatch out a few hens left me with about 12 roosters!  


My girl is in heaven though, and they are so freaking cute. Once they hit that awkward 'teen year' stage i might be able to part with a few, especially any obvious roosters.

i had two other hens go missing, and i spotted one yesterday and also spotted a pile of feathers behind the goat field.  So one is not coming back, but the other very well may show up with her clutch of chicks any day now.  Ah, so many babies!! So yes, spring is definitely in the air.

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