Not the clearest of pictures, but you get the idea how Buttercup and her brood bed down for the night, in a tight spot between a screen and the wall. Her chicks are two months old now and she still beds down in a corner of the coop with them. She’s got three chicks on her back with the rest of them packed in around her.

I’ve never had a hen take this long before taking her chicks up to roost. Many of the hens coax their little ones to fly up to roost when they are a month old, sometimes before the little ones can even fly up so high. It’s a traumatic event for the chicks, looking up at their mother high up on the roost. They peep loudly, and try to figure out how to get up there to join her.

Many hens have a “sink or swim” attitude when it comes to rearing their chicks. “You wanna sleep with your momma? Then get your butt up here,” is their attitude. Tough love and all that.

It will be interesting to see when Buttercup decides it is time for her brood to roost. At this age, they won’t have any difficulty following her to the highest of roosts.