Lucky’s eggs hatched. After watching hens hatch eggs for five years, you’d think it would be no big deal. But each hatching is wonderful. And Lucky is a very special hen. As a tiny chick, she had an unfortunate accident and scraped the back of her head and neck. We had to separate her from her siblings as they kept pecking at her wound. Oh she peeped and peeped and peeped to be with them. They didn’t have a mother. Someone had ordered some chicks from a hatchery and received the wrong breeds. The local post office called and asked if we’d take them.

We rigged up a space with chicken wire just for Lucky so she could be right next to her siblings while she healed. She grew up to be an outgoing hen, with a very distinctive look. She’s usually the first hen to see what we’re doing when we go to work in the gardens.

We weren’t sure if her eggs would hatch. She decided to brood her eggs in a nest a few other hens also liked to use to lay eggs. Sometimes we’d find her in the next nest while another hen lay an egg in her nest. We marked the eggs we put under her for her to hatch, so we were able to remove any eggs other hens added to her clutch.

From time to time, we found her sitting on new eggs in the nest next to hers and had to move her back onto her eggs. One morning I found that she’d even spent a whole night on the other nest and her eggs were cold. I had my doubts any of her eggs would hatch. But they did, and now she has a happy brood to raise.