Blog » It's that time of year again

It's time for baby chicks!  This year we had a broody chicken starting in mid-April.  A broody chicken is one who refuses to come outside and scratch and eat and drink and do all those things that chickens should do; instead she sits inside on a nest full of eggs and waits for them to hatch.

Never you mind that all her eggs were infertile (we don't have any roosters), or that Spruce Goose regularly kicked her off the nest to lay GIANT goose eggs in it.  She was determined.  So when it was time for us to get chicks, we decided that instead of raising them ourselves, we'd give them to the broody one.  We called her Broody McBrooderson.

She is the best mom ever.  When the chicks came, I went into the bird house and, while Aaron distracted Broody, I snuck out an egg and put two chicks in its place.  And then I did it again, until there were 21 (you read that right, TWENTY ONE) tiny babies underneath her.  They all fell asleep immediately.  We lifted up a wing to check that they weren't being smothered or anything, and they were all lined up like tiny fuzzy sardines. The next day we added 12 more (they came late), so she's got 33 little ones to take care of.

Notice the tiny foot sticking out under her wing. Now we call her The Mothership. She moves around like a tank and all the little babies follow her and sometimes they hop onto her head and when they get chilly they all disappear under her belly and she lies on top of them.

This chick is clearly giving me the stinkeye. She's a Buff Orpington (just like mom!). This year we also got 3 turkeys, some Barred Rocks, and some Araucanas, who have cheeks like chipmunks and apparently lay blue and green eggs.