dragonlady7

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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)