Category: agrarianism (Page 14 of 19)

At this point, this is our final hatching of the year — the eighth the Lord has graciously granted!

Here’s the mommy with her chicks! I believe it was four hatched out, and four still going strong, thanks to God! In the second picture, you can see a couple of them at the bottom eating an egg the mama had laid but they crushed as they were trying to get away from me when I was taking these pictures: 🙂

Weird story: one day I walked in to check on them, and one chick seemed sort of stuck to the cage fencing. As I examined closer, indeed it was — a strand of chicken wire had double-pierced through its little chest and was holding it fast! Wow! So, I pulled the wire through, sprayed with hydrogen peroxide, and prayed for the best. And the Lord granted it recover fine, thankfully. Still, that was a new one for animal experiences! 🙂

Here’s a video of them, including after moving all of the rest of the chicks out into the pen area this past Saturday night after dark. The fifth hatching had been there with their mama for some time, but I pulled that hen, and moved all of the rest of the chicks, including this eighth hatching, from the summer kitchen to join them, putting all of the mommies back into the main chicken tractor.

We are once again very grateful to the Lord for all of the chicken provisions He has graciously granted this year! May He glorify Himself in these processes and granting of these provisions!

— David

Once again, we had a hen go broody; and so we put her in the piano room with her eggs, and voila, by God’s mercies, she hatched out 8 more chicks! And here they are with their mama:

I took that picture and made the video below just last Thursday, and very sadly on Friday morning, I found one of the chicks had died. It’s always hard to know what happened when you just find them laying there — we did have some pretty boisterous storms come through Thursday night with some very loud thunder claps, and so maybe there was some panic in the cage area; or perhaps the chick was just ill; or maybe it got bit by something. But, the Lord is the owner of the chickens, so He can certainly do what He wills with them, although we always ask for help to take care of the gifts and provisions He graciously and mercifully grants.

Surprise!

One night, I heard some odd thumping going on outside. I tracked down the sound, and it was coming from under our 3-point shredder implement! Huh?

Here’s a picture of the shredder:

Well, I looked under, and there was a hen walking around with eggs all over the place. And then…..I saw a young skunk too! I was able to grab the hen, and eventually shoo out the skunk, ready to shoot it, but it got away. We pulled out all of the eggs from under the shredder, not sure exactly what to do, although I believe we were just going to put the hen in a cage area in the summer kitchen with her eggs. And then I noticed….one was hatching as I held it! Oh wow….ok, so we took it and all of the eggs, and indeed put the hen and the eggs in the summer kitchen.

And, well, that little chick made it! And here it is with it’s mommy:

Some days later, another chick started hatching too, although it was taking a long time; and so, I helped it a little, and it did finish hatching out, but never really could stand up to walk at all (it was able to stay upright unlike Tiny from the third hatching, but just not stand). We tried keeping it alive with goat milk, hoping it would get stronger, but sadly, it died a couple of days later.

But, even this single chick that made it was a nice surprise, especially given the circumstance of its incubation and what was happening while it was beginning to hatch!

Here’s the video of the sixth hatching, with all eight chicks at the time, and the seventh hatching:

We are very grateful to God again for granting these new chicks, and the general continued health and safety He has granted!

— David

Well, once again, one of our Australorp hens got broody, and we put her in our mini-chicken tractor. Three weeks later….nothing. But, she kept setting, so we put another clutch of eggs under her, saying a prayer that maybe at least one would hatch so she would not be inclined to set another three weeks (although I was planning on trying to break her broodiness if that happened). But, indeed God did grant she hatch out some chicks — four more, all healthy, and still healthy, thanks to the Lord’s graces!

Here are a few pictures:

And their video:

You may wonder why we do so many of these “Perpetuation” posts, like for every hatching, but for us, each time some new animals are born or hatched out, besides the wonderful and joyous miracle they are, they are also part of our living provisions, and we consider each occurrence — even each chick — to be a kind gift from God.

Again, we are thankful to Him for these new chicks and their continued good health and growth!

— David

The Lord has continued to be gracious in granting us broody hens, and here is the next hatching! We believe she hatched out 8 and we lost one early, but the other 7 are still going strong!

Here is a video of them a few weeks ago, and from a few days ago, in the chicken pen area where I moved them, and where the 2nd and 3rd group are as well:

We are always very grateful to God for His granting continued hatchings and healthy chickens!

— David

About a day after the hen from the second batch of chicks went broody, another hen, one of our Game Hen breed I believe, went broody as well, in a garbage can in the barn, if I remember correctly. And so, we moved her into the piano room with a set of eggs under her; and by God’s graces, a day after the other hen hatched out her chicks, this one did too! Nine in all, and eight are still going strong!

Here are a couple of pictures:

And below is their video. There was one chick hatched out that was cripple — it couldn’t stand up and would just lay on its side, moving its legs almost swimmingly, trying to stand up. If you got it standing, it would just fall over. I tried working with it, feeding it to try to keep it alive, making a runway for it to try to learn to walk. I called it Tiny, because it was such a small little thing:

And for a while I thought it might get it — it would walk along, eat the food I had laid down in the trough, even preen a few times, and seemed to be getting better with its balance; but in the end, sadly, about a week after hatching, it died.

Still, one thing that was interesting to me was that I would place it in its runway, come back later, and it would have crawled its way out, and slide-crawled itself through the 1-inch chicken wire around the cage area, I assume to try to get to its mommy. This happened at least twice. It was an inspiration in dedication to me, and led me to think and then pray that we strive after the Lord Christ Jesus the same way. May we be able to hide under His wings, and may He maybe grant a sense of that (see these several Psalms references).

Although I wasn’t able to capture those times with Tiny, you can still see it in this video:

We are once again very grateful to the Lord for granting us the continuation of the flock, and we pray He always glorifies Himself through these things, including in His sovereign giving and taking of anything, in accordance with His will.

— David

As I mentioned in our blog post about the first chicks that the Lord granted us in 2014 ¹, we had another hen go broody, an Australorp, which we showed in our mini chicken tractor, and by God graciousness, He granted that she hatch out a bunch o’ chicks! Out of 13 eggs, 11 hatched out, and all 11 are still rolling along just great, it appears!

Here are a few pictures:

And their video:

As always, we are so very grateful to the Lord for His granting of these provisions. We’ve had to butcher some more roosters recently to get the rooster-hen ratio better, and it is humbling and joyful to be eating the food the Lord has directly provided! We are very thankful.

— David

¹ P.S. You’ll have to forgive me, as in the previous post I said one of our Australorps was the mother of those first hatchlings, and that wasn’t correct — I’ve corrected it since.