your moment of zen

[dragonlady7]

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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)