Our First Chicks!

One of our hens started "setting" a little over a month ago. That means that the hen will start sitting on her eggs and won't leave them only to eat/drink. Anyway, she had a whole bunch of eggs under her (a "clutch" of eggs) that were likely unfertilized. Our rooster is of a very small breed and can't quite fertilize a normal sized hen. So, after two weeks of "setting" I talked to my Aunt Alice to get some advice. She was pretty sure that none were fertilized and that she would bring over a few fertilized ones from her brood. I think she brought about 6 eggs of all colors and sizes and did a switcheroo. Our setting hen didn't know the difference. We moved her to a large cage 2 weeks later and checked the eggs. One, for sure, was no good...so we were down to 5.

A week after we moved her, we heard a little "cheep" and found that the hen was outside the nest keeping at least one little chick warm. We let her be. There was one egg left unhatched, so we were hopeful that we had 4 chicks.

The next day (yesterday) I took the kids out to show them that the chicks had hatched! Hens are quite protective of their little babes so it took some coaxing to get her to move so we could see how many we had. It was so funny, cause it was like the chicks were stuffed up in her feathers and they kinda fell out. We have 3 chicks, and we don't know what happened to the 4th. There are a few possibilities one could imagine.

The kids, of course, were very excited and wanted to hold them. I took two of the three out. Soren wasn't as keen as Synnove, but they both enjoyed playing with them for a couple of minutes.

At one day old the chicks are quite agile...even jumping over the kids' boots.

Soren, after holding the chick once, didn't want to anymore, and would only "poke" them.

Oh, so cute!! The 3rd chick looks like this one.

I don't know why this pic ended up sideways...that's not how I downloaded it.