Can you tell which two came from the store? Our hens surprised us by laying again this week. It is always so nice to have fresh eggs again. Even those labeled free range and organic are much lighter in color and more watery in texture. If you can find a farmer it is worth the trouble.

My friend Barb sent the link to this article summing up Mother Earth News’ study comparing conventional and free range eggs. Really motivates a person to make the effort! These directions show how you can rig up a portable coop for a small number of hens. You get the best of both worlds – free ranged hens who aren’t on your porch.

Boldly going where no hen has dared to go, she reached the crest of the barn…

  Leaving this guy in the dust. Falling down on the   job again, buddy.

We had a fowl tragedy this week. It was very, very cold overnite and even though the sun was up it was still cold while we were milking and feeding in the morning. I had gone back to the house to strain milk and Moira came to say Alannah needed me. The littlest chick wasn’t well. She brought her in to the house to warm up since it looked like she had been by herself through the night and was hypothermic. We tried the hair dryer trick and then put her under the heat lamp for a bit. She seemed to rouse ever so slightly but in the end she gave up the ghost. She was holding her own in the coop but having been hatched and incubated alone she never was accepted as part of the flock.

My poor Alannah. : (  She feels every loss so keenly. The other children seem to have a certain emotional detachment from agricultural loss but Alannah is just like I was as a child. Every small bird fallen from a nest, every puppy rejected by its mother, every cat who met a bad end, they all broke my heart. I can still picture every kitten I lost growing up. I can still remember the orphan foal who died, the ducklings with the birth defects. Ugh!  Though somehow instead of hardening me it fostered a maternal instinct that is intact as ever today.  That is my wish for Alannah.  I hope she can channel this tenderness and mercy into something incredible as she grows. In the meantime we have the world’s luckiest chickens. : )

These pics started out as part of my photojournalism of the latest peep retrieval.  The girls rushed out of the haystack last night during chores insisting they heard more peeping. Unfortunately this time it was from the second of the last two broody hens who has been perched on top of Old Smoky about a foot from the ceiling. Not that the ceiling was that high, but it was precarious on the top of the hay bales and she has been regularly laying eggs that roll off the stacks like a bad cartoon assembly line scene. This time it was the chick who fell off…. between the hay bales and the wall.  She survived and was vocally complaining her fate.  So was the Ranch Foreman (aka Dad) when he got the word. ; o

We assessed the situation and it was a logistical nightmare.  Moving her wasn’t a great option since broody hens are NASTY.  She was sitting right at the edge of one bale so moving the bales next to her meant it was likely that some eggs were going to fall.  Since we couldn’t how many of those eggs had chicks in them it was really creepy to consider an egg falling and opening.  Ewwwwww! So we had called in Dad.  Doesn’t he look thrilled?

Dad decided to move the adjoining bales and catch the eggs if need be.  The hen wouldn’t budge so we stuck the falling eggs under the other hen, which was likely wrong on some chicken level but hey, it’s warm down there. The peeping got louder so we kept moving bales until she was sighted. The girls grabbed her and took her in to the brooder. She warmed up but was clearly a new hatchling, tinier than any we have had so far. She seemed to be doing fine so we went to eat dinner finally.

Later, Moira came and whispered to me, "Mom, you better go get that chick.  I think she is dead."  Now, Moira is more matter of fact about farm things.  And not as fond of chickens as her sister.  We all sorta went : / at the prospect of breaking it to Alannah.  She took it better than expected but she is tenderhearted and these things hurt. A lot. So please send a happy thought her way! At least she has a hero of a dad who changed from suit and tie to gloves and boots and chucked hay bales for half an hr to retrieve a dying peep. I hope in the end that is part she remembers most.

Or maybe I should say Peeper in singular. Saturday Alannah noticed another chick. In this case it was a good thing that they hadn’t leaped upon my directions to clean out the haystack of any leftover eggs. Apparently this is the rooster’s swan song to us. I was hoping he/she would have at least one companion in the brooder but so far not. Here is the newest as she brought it in to be warmed up.

They are so outta here!  The first set of chicks has moved out of their brooder into a protected section of the regular chicken coop. After two close calls retrieving the tom cat from the coop they seem to be doing well.

The last little chick seems to have identity confusion.  She mistakenly thinks she is a parakeet.  Whomever told me chickens don’t fly has not seen ours!  They routinely roost on the barn rafters and this one is following suit. Before we put the mesh over her brooder we were finding her in places like this:

She is contained now but I am hoping they will all be able to be housed together before too long. 

I found the girls surfing the hatchery site trying to match up pics of the chicks to identify their breeds.  (We still dont know who laid them all)  I pointed out that they likely wouldn’t find a perfect match because we literally "made" these breeds by crossing the Spangled rooster with these various breeds of hens. So this is science in the making. <g>

Here is what we found so far. Pip and Squeak. : ) Two little black Australorp chicks.  We had a heckuva time getting Pip out of the nest.  Had to move bales of hay and pry that broody hen over to grab him.  Sounds brutal I know but he was getting dehydrated and hungry and she isn’t leaving the nest anytime soon.  Nor would he stand a chance with the barn cats and other hens.  While retrieving him Moira found another peep so we grabbed it too. Looks like at least one more egg was cracking so will see what happens! 

We have them in the bathroom for the time being in a big Rubbermaid tub.  My brooder light wouldnt turn on so we have the heating pad under them and a shoplight over them and the temp. is staying up at 95 where it needs to be. Allen will pick up another light on his way home hopefully and we can figure out permanent housing. Which, lets be honest, will likely BE the bathroom for a while lol! 

Hope to upload some more pics and news of the kids before long. Way overdue on that.

Been a busy weekend around here with company the past two days. Wanted to tell you the incredible thing that happened this morning however. I had come into the house from milking and the girls were finishing feeding. When they went in to get the hay they heard peeps. I went back out with the flashlight and sure enough there is a little chick!

Let me back it up a bit. We have a few hens who have gone "broody" this year. It’s a rather rare thing for most of the commercial layer breeds since they have had the instinct bred out of them.  We had a broody hen last winter but after sitting for two weeks she got up and walked away from her rather large clutch.  So when these hens started we weren’t real hopeful anything would come of it.  In fact we have been discouraging them because although they have enough instinct to start, they don’t seem to follow through.  We end up with lots of lost eggs.

This one wasn’t to be discouraged however. We were just saying this morning that it had to be close to the 3 wks it takes to hatch out the eggs. We were discussing how long to leave her there and when to get the eggs out – assuming they were dead.  And then……..PEEP! A little black chick crept out from under her and was squawking in the hay. He/she ran around her a while then crawled back under. We are waiting to see how many if any more eggs hatch.  It can take 24 hrs for them to "pip" and then "peep".  (Pipping being the first little knock against the shell wall) I tried to catch the chick but missed so all I have to share right now is the broody hen, hunkered down on those eggs.  Gives new meaning to the term "nesting"!

I did get  new pics of the kittens since they are all sharing the maternity ward together. Really hoping mama cat doesnt decide to serve chicken dinner……  Stay tuned!  Will hope to have more pics tomorrow.