As hoped for when we showed the broody hen in our last chicken hatching blog post, the Lord granted the momma hen to hatch out some new chicks! She hatched out 8 out of 11 or so — one had the shell cracked all the way around, but sadly didn’t make it out; and it looked like another one had died during the incubation process.
From the mini-tractor, I moved them into the piano room so they have a little more room, and to get them away from the ants (although ants get into the summer kitchen, but just not as badly as sometimes in the mini-tractor). Once in there, one day I noticed there were only 7; and I ended up not being able to find hide nor hair (or skin nor feather) of it. And then a day or two later, one of the other chicks I found dead. I did see one of our smaller, homestead snakes in the piano room, so I’m wondering if it got either or both. Or the first one maybe got out of the fencing, and one of the hens we have running around the summer kitchen, while their backs are recovering from when the roosters service them too much and the feather are removed, got the chick. Not sure. But, we are thankful to God for what He has allowed to continue, and here is a picture of them — I thought I’d try to get them a little younger this time:
And a short video:
And here is another hen the Lord has granted to get broody. This is actually the mother hen from that last hatching blog post mentioned above, going for another round apparently; and she’s about a week into it:
We are so very grateful to the Lord for the granting of these continued provisions. May His works, both spiritual and temporal, bring glory to Himself!
— David
We have a few roosters ourselves who kept tagging the same hens over and over and like yours they lost all their back feathers, the crazy thing is we have over 35 hens and only 5 roosters and yet they still wanted to mate with the same girls.. We have had 30 chicks hatch on the farm, a complete surprize being outside and seeing a bunch of babies walk by and come outta the brush..LOL Congrats on your farm blessings
Hi Barn Swallow,
Yes, I've seen that too, where the roosters seem to like the same hens.
We've had those surprise hatchings too — very much the surprise to have a hen and her hatchlings all of a sudden show up outside a controlled environment with them all following her. 🙂
Thanks much, and thanks for saying hi!
— David