MAMA HEN #1

This mama we knew was sitting on eggs. We don’t always let our broody’s stay broody, but this one was out of the way, in a secluded area behind rakes, brooms & shovels in Farmer John’s Man Shack, so we let her continue. I’d check on her occasionally and she was always sitting super still without making a sound and sure enough eventually her eggs hatched. Thirteen chicks total. She was such a good mama. I wish all broodies would be such good mothers.

MAMA HEN #2

The next day – Surprise, another mama & 11 more chicks wandering around. Complete shock. I still have no idea where she was hiding and sitting on her eggs.

MAMA HEN #3

Often in our main coop a hen will go broody. Usually we end up taking her out, so she doesn’t disturb the laying process of the other hens since they all seem to lay eggs in the same nest box, which also happens to be the nest box they tend to sit in when they go broody. Well, we weren’t so diligent about it the last month or so. And, the day after spying Mama #2 & her chicks, I saw our Welsummer hen with one baby in the main coop.

MAMA HEN #4

One more mama to be. I found her behind the goat fence in the brush, under a tree. This is probably not the safest place for her or her eggs, but I’m going to hope for the best & not disturb them. I’m not sure how long she’s been sitting here, but she’s got quite a collection of eggs.

And, I thought we were done with chicks until next spring. Ha! Now that the weather is turning colder & wetter, though, we’ll move everybody back to the enclosed coop and have a better handle on babies in the making.

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Hatch #8 was our last incubated hatch for awhile. It was a last effort to get a few more Marans. Last year we sold all the chicks we hatched, which meant we didn’t have any left over for ourselves. This year we hatched many more & will keep a few.

CHICKS

The odds when breeding a Blue Marans with a Black are that you will get a 50% mix of Blues and Black Marans. For the majority of our hatches, I’d guess that’s close to accurate. This hatch, though, we got about 75% black & 25% blue.

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MAMA HENS

Once again a Black Copper Marans hen went broody. Last time a BCM went broody the outcome wasn’t great, but I decided to give them another shot at motherhood.

The broody hen made her nest box in a black plant container in their coop, certainly not an ideal place for a chick. Not long later another hen went broody and thought the same nest box seemed like a good place to sit.

Then, a third BCM hen went broody. Of course, opting to sit on the same eggs as the other two broody ladies.

As my estimated hatch day was getting closer I told Farmer John we needed to do something about the 3 sitting hens. I didn’t think it would go well for the babies to have 3 hens trying to be mama.

Well, my estimation was a few days too late. One morning I checked on the 3 pack in the nest box and noticed a chick.

Our plan was to take two of the hens off the nest and to separate them from the one hen designated to be mama and the chicks.

At bedtime we let the other 2 back in the coop hoping they would hop on the roost. Of course, they didn’t. And by the next morning the other two snuck into the netted area and were back on the nest box. I pulled back the netting & promptly tossed two hens back outside.

I needed to move the chick out of the nest box so it could reach food & water. So, I moved mama, baby & eggs to the ground on a pile of straw. As I was doing that I noticed a second chick. Unfortunately, it had a wonky leg. I don’t know if it hatched that way or was the result of having too many broodies in the nest.

This mama wanted nothing to do with the wonky-legged chick. The two broodies outside, though, were clucking away, so the chick hobbled and drug itself trying to get closer to the mamas that seemed to care. Truth is, its leg was so bad I knew it wouldn’t make it. But, I wasn’t anticipating what happened next.

I decided that maybe if I gave this chick to the two mamas outside that they would leave the one inside alone & focus on the chick they had. Wrong.

As soon as I placed the chick outside, those two bitches came over and started pecking it to death. I’ve never seen anything like, nor do I care to see it again. They were ruthless. I grabbed the chick, but not before it got a number of good pecks. I just assumed that since they were sitting there while it hatched that they would take it in as their own. Nope. I don’t know if they knew it wasn’t quite right & that was nature’s way of dealing with it. Or, if our BCM’s just aren’t meant to be mama’s.

We didn’t have a good solution to keeping the chick and any others that hatched safe from the craziness of three broodies. So, I took the chick & eggs away.

I put the one chick in with some other chicks that were a couple weeks old.

And, put the remaining eggs in the incubator. Four eggs hatched & appear to be doing just fine.

My lesson learned here is that if I’m going to let a mama hatch chicks then I need to let nature take its course and stop interfering. I’m not sure the interfering is doing the chicks any favors… Or, who knows maybe it would have ended up worse. I just don’t know.

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We’re still hatching chicks. We have one more Marans batch in the incubator now, then I think we’ll be done for awhile. I’m hoping by October we’ll be able clearly identify all the pullets from the cockerels. The pullets will come with me to the Fall Swap. Some of them should even be laying by October.

A couple months ago we got another incubator. It was a last minute decision & we needed it right away. So, I ran to the feed store & bought the same incubator we already owned. To keep things straight in my records, I’ve named the incubators. The original incubator is Wilma. I named the new one Betty.

For this hatch the eggs were set in Wilma. At lock down I separated the Easter Eggers & Olive Eggers from the Rhode Island Reds & Marans. I do this because many of our OE’s look similar to our Marans. After the Marans hatch I place a band on one leg to identify them.

HATCHING!

On one side of Wilma I placed the Olive Eggers. These eggs were layed by our EE hens & fertilized by our Splash Marans. On the other side of Wilma were the EE’s & OE’s. The Easter Eggers were fertilized by our main stud of the farm, Mo. The Olive Eggs were fertilized by Roost, our OE rooster. In Betty were the Rhode Island Reds & Marans.

CHICKS

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HATCHING!

CHICKS

For this hatch we hatched our typical Easter Eggers & Marans. But, we also put a couple light colored Easter Eggers in with our Splash Marans to create Olive Eggers. These chicks are so cute! They are a mix of pale yellow & light gray. I can’t wait to see what they look like as adult birds.

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EGGS IN THE TURNER & CANDLING THE EGGS

CHICKS

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MAMA HEN

One of our Black Copper Marans had gone broody & was doing quite a good job sitting on her eggs. The only problem was that the other hens kept wanting to lay their eggs where she was sitting. So, she wasn’t able to sit on all the eggs all the time.

A few weeks prior we moved the ducks from their pen to the garden. So that left the duck pen empty & we moved the broody hen & 6 eggs to that pen.

For the first few hours, Ms. Broody paced back & forth in the pen not liking her move. Eventually she settled down & sat on the eggs. Once she sat, she rarely got up.

I wasn’t exactly sure when the eggs would hatch, or if they would hatch. But, I had a date in mind that I thought would be close to hatch day.

As my hatch day guess got closer, I kept a closer eye on the happenings in Ms. Broody’s nest. The day I thought they could hatch I peeked in and saw a fluffy, spry chick!

An hour or two later I went back to check on them and found a squashed chick under the new Mama. I didn’t see the fluffy, spry guy.

Later, Farmer John pulled the dead chick out from Mama. He didn’t see the fluffy, spry guy.

I went on with my day, taking kids to their activities. By the time I got home I decided I should take the rest of the eggs from Mama. I don’t know why she stepped on the chick. Was it purely an accident or was she just not good Mama material? So, Farmer John & I grabbed the 4 remaining eggs & put them in the incubator. We didn’t see the fluffy, spry guy.

The next morning I was shocked to see Mama and a chick wondering around the pen. Apparently 2 eggs had hatched. We never saw the chick alive that ended up dieing. And, the fluffy, spry guy is a master at hiding.

It made sense, though, because I knew she was sitting on 6 eggs. But, when I went to move the eggs there were only 4. I assumed something happened to the missing egg sometime over the couple weeks she was sitting on them. I never caught her off the eggs to get a look at how many she was still sitting on.

MEANWHILE IN THE INCUBATOR

One Blue Marans hatched with no problems.

A day or two after being in the incubator, an egg began looking odd. Bubbly gross things were coming out of the egg. It was rotten. It began to stink. Just for curiosity’s sake, I took it out of the incubator, placed it in a plastic baggie & broke the egg. Disgusting! It was filled with dark, pukey green liquid & what was once a developing chick. Let me just say it again – Disgusting! This was our first experience with a rotten egg in the incubator. Blech!

That left two more eggs in the incubator. I candled them & they looked different than what I’m used to seeing. But, so did the egg that hatched. I ended up just dumping them because I was getting nervous that maybe they were rotten, too.

So, 3 out of the 6 eggs hatched. But, only 2 survived.

We had a chick squished to death, a rotten egg & 2 questionable eggs. If every hatch were like this, I would not be a chicken farmer. Thankfully, our hatches typically go much better.

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Thursday & Friday more chicks hatched! I’m tellin’ ya, this never gets old. These were the last chicks to hatch before taking part in the Oregon Spring Poultry Swap.

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Last week more babies hatched. Most of the chicks hatched so far this year are coming with me tomorrow to the Oregon Spring Poultry Swap. I’m very excited about the swap. I’ve been to a couple swaps as a customer, but this is the first time I’ll be there as a vendor.

HATCHING!

CHICKS

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Friday & Saturday we welcomed another batch of babies. I anxiously await hatch day(s) & am amazed every single time at the wonders of life.

This month we incubated Easter Eggers & Marans. The Marans eggs were from our 3 Black Copper Marans hens with a Blue Copper Marans rooster. So, the chicks hatched could be either blue or black. I didn’t really care which color they were, but I am hoping they end up with copper around their hackles or neck area. That’s a trait we’re trying to work on.

HATCHING!

CHICKS

Spring is officially here & we have babies. Life is good.

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