Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken!

So as you will see above... we have some little chicks in the family!

A couple of months ago all of our hens were behaving the same until one day one of the hens started to behave differently.  

She wasn't allowing the other hens in the chicken house to lay eggs after she had laid hers and when George would go in the evening to collect the eggs she would still be sat on there and would create a real fuss when he had to take the eggs away!

We realised we had what they call a 'broody hen' and out of 19 chickens, she is the only hen that has shown any broody behaviour.

We asked our good friend who has a small farm to give us 6 of his hens fertilised eggs. We separated the broody hen from the main flock and placed the eggs underneath her. She sat on those eggs for 3 weeks, barely eating or drinking, everything was solely dedicated to incubating those 6 eggs. 

After 3 weeks, all 6 hatched (hooray!). One was weaker than the others and died but the remaining 5 chicks are happy and healthy and at nearly 2 weeks old, already getting their wing feathers.

The thing that surprised George and I the most is how the broody hen sacrifices herself for the sake of those chicks, and how lovely it is to watch her show them how to behave by scratting about and wiping their beaks on the ground.

Take care.

Lucy

xxx