your moment of zen

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[image: image]

[img desc: a screenshot of of an Instagram post https://www.instagram.com/p/CPeXDvhJ2o8/ by laughing.earth (Farmsister). The image is a black and white striped hen leaning down next to some tiny black fluffballs of chicks, next to a red heatlamp.]

Caption: Anyone who has been by the farm recently knows that we have a small cadre of hens and one rooster who have declared themselves free range and are living in the barnyard. One of them decided to start a family and has been sitting on a nest of eggs for apparently 21 days! Willa has dubbed this hen “Henrietta” and has been caring for her, bringing food and water to this broody hen. Tonight, she went to check on Henrietta and discovered the eggs hatched! 12 of 15 are adorable fluffy chicks. Our after dinner entertainment was to move the mama and her new babies to our brooder with this week’s batch of broiler chicks. The hen was very pleased to show her chicks how to drink out of the water vessel, and get them all settled in under the heat lamp. We are surprised and proud.

Bonus images, from me, and a bonus update: [image: image]

[img desc: Stripy black and white hen puffed out in a broody-hen posture, clucking to her chicks. Upper right there is a yellow chick visible standing in the corner.]

We moved this hen into a brooder occupied by the latest batch of broiler chicks, which we buy as day-old chicks sent through the mail. There are some 300+ of them already in the brooder. They seem delighted to have a mom.

one last picture, of the box we used to move the chicks over: [image: image]

[img desc: cardboard box containing five or six visible little black chicks with white spots on their heads, and three unhatched eggs]

The exciting morning update is that we moved the three unhatched eggs along with the hatched ones, and this morning we can only find two unhatched eggs, so it’s quite likely that one more egg did hatch.

(Sister had to run out this morning to tell the person whose job it is to do chores this morning not to be alarmed to find an entire hen in the brooder, where normally a hen would not be, so she checked while she was there.) (Your picture was not posted)

@msilverstar replied to your post and said ..

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msilverstar https://tmblr.co/mZfkkvXPHqhShi7HwJnok1g replied to your post and said

this is adorable!!! Are there any photos of the other chicks and the hen? I want all happy families (yes I know they will be killed for food)

Ah, not so far. I’m keeping some distance. The hen is kind of aggressively broody at the moment.

Farmkid peeked in though and said she was driving off the yellow chicks from trying to sit with her. So she may actually get removed from the brooder soonish. We’d hate to break up the family, but it’s not safe outdoors, and if she’s not actually chill with the other chicks then that’s not fair to them.

Farmkid made a deal, though, right away. “Can we never eat Henrietta?” (that’s what she named the broody hen) “Can we let her live until she dies? And her chicks too?” So that’s the deal, if we can figure out a way to earmark them. We might try to leg-band Henrietta so we know which one she is, or something.

(Yes, the yellow chicks are for food. They grow much faster, though, and they’ll be going out to pasture long before the naturally-hatched ones. Also there’s an incubator full of eggs containing more black chicks, though these ones are likely purebred Barred Rocks (Henrietta’s breed), and they’re scheduled to hatch in three days. So, likely Henrietta’s chicks will end up with them, but likely will be in some way distinctive since it’s very likely their father was the Spangled Homburg rooster. They may not look any different, though, in which case… well… we’ll see. They’re egg chickens, not for food, so they won’t be eaten anytime soon.) (Your picture was not posted)

jerry-of-rivia:jerry-of-rivia:Man, Andrzej Sapkowski

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jerry-of-rivia https://jerry-of-rivia.tumblr.com/post/652543953731829760:

jerry-of-rivia https://jerry-of-rivia.tumblr.com/post/652486856673476608:

Man, Andrzej Sapkowski really said “let’s take this lil orphaned princess to a crumbling spookyass castle in treacherous mountains inhabited by a dying breed of semi-immortal monster hunting mutants whose every aspect is tainted with tragedy, and when she arrives in a terrible storm, to walls bedecked with weapons and slain creatures, the most horrifically scarred of these men comes close, kneels down, and basically says ‘I guess we’re your dads now.’ And then they love her unconditionally.”

3 to 5 feral himbos and their magical daughter (Your picture was not posted)