The gang of 5 chicks born March 25 are nearly a month old and spending more time away from their mother. This afternoon I found them resting together, their mother happily feeding by herself.
While these one day chicks, born on Easter, are getting their first taste of life outside the nest. They have a very feisty mother. In fact the most protective hen I’ve seen. It will be interesting what sort of mother she turns out to be. The variety of personalities even among hens is remarkable. Here at a man and his hoe®, the chickens have the space and freedom to let their personalities bloom.
Tag: Chicken
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Transitions
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First Post Child Rearing Egg
Hens lay special eggs at times. There is the very first egg they lay, which is a tiny egg. There is the first egg they lay after their winter lull. These eggs also tend to be smaller. And then there is the first egg they lay after raising chicks. And today this mother laid her first egg after raising chicks for three weeks. That is on the early side. Most hens take more than a month before they go back to laying eggs.
I get the sense that this mother may not be raising her chicks much longer. They are getting very independent and at times during the day they stray tens of feet from her. When she was up on the nest laying her egg, her five chicks huddled together and waited patiently for her to come back down.
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Liquid Gold
A remarkable feature of the chickens from a man and his hoe® is the golden fat on the birds. It’s more like oil or butter than the fat you find on beef and pork. At room temperature it is liquid and makes a delicious fat for frying. -
Dirt Bath
On a bright sunny day, chickens enjoy having a bath in the warm dirt. They can spend an entire hour rolling around in the dirt, and often they like to do this in small groups. This is behavior that is innate and something they seem to need to do, like pigs needing to wallow in mud.
So how do birds in these cage-free “humanely-raised” egg laying operations get to roll around in the dirt in the bright sunshine and fresh air? The next time you buy eggs, ask the grocer if the hens who laid the eggs you are buying, get to spend hours rolling around in the dirt in the afternoon sun.
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Working Mother To Be
So what is life like for a mother-to-be hen? Most of the time, day and night, it is sitting quietly on her eggs. She is also gently turning the eggs many times a day. This keeps the embryo centered in the egg and prevents it from sticking to the shell membrane. She also protects the eggs she is sitting on and will keep other hens and predators from getting into her nest. (The squiggly lines on the eggs are ones I drew to mark the eggs she started incubating.)
Of course, a hen doesn’t have a servant to bring her food and water. At least once a day, she has to leave the nest to eat, drink, go to the bathroom, and get some exercise.
Afterwards, she is back on her nest until the next day.