Chick Au Naturale

This would be the first ever chick to have been hatched by a hen of our's. And we have seen that babies raised by their mothers do much, much better than those raised by incubators. I actually think this one's gonna make it. She's been sitting for awhile now but I was a little skeptical if anything would emerge since our egg hatching abilities tend to be lacking a little....apparently her's aren't. Grayson went out to tend to them the other day and discovered this little chick pecking away and working hard on its shell. The next morning we had a fully hatched chick. I was a little amazed.

But apparently stupid runs deep in animals and this chick proved to be no different. It fell out of the nesting box twice. I figured if it did ever fall out that there was not much chance of it surviving. But....it did. Twice! Something within this stupid thing liked the floor so much that he just kept doing it. The 3rd morning into it Grayson ran in at 7:30 to tell me the chick was now stuck under the coop. We had sealed up every hole and opening around it to keep the bigger hens...and snakes, hopefully....from camping out underneath the coop. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how this chick got under there. Then Grayson informed me of the small opening over in the corner of the coop where the grate doesn't quite meet up completely with the metal support pole. With sun already beating mercilessly down there we were at 7:30 in the morning digging a hole trying to desperately save this chick's life. The mother instinct of this hen was amazing to me though. There she sat, abandoning her other 3 eggs to tend to her one live chick. She sat on top of the grate while the chick huddled perfectly below the grate...right under the shadow of her wings. Grayson dug for what seemed like forever and made very little progress. And due to the fact he had put hay out there and a good portion of it had fallen through it seemed every path was blocked. 7:30 soon turned to 8...then to 8:30 and it did nothing but get hotter. Finally I did a little experiment and just picked up the mama hen and moved her over. And with her relocation, the chick relocated again right back under her. We were on to something! I ran in the house and got a piece of PVC and ran back out. I began to scoot hay away and make small holes to clear a path for this stupid chick to make its way to the side of the coop where it was within reaching distance. Once hay was cleared and a path was made I again picked up mama hen and moved her over. Chick moved too. After some time spent maneuvering and slowly moving big hen across the floor of the coop and watching baby follow she was soon within arm's length. Grayson made the winning catch. He scooped it up and after almost an hour and a half's worth of digging, scooting, trouble shooting and soothing a disturbed mama hen we finally had chick in hand. Not exatcly how I anticipate spending the mornings...especially when we were all already needing a shower at a mere 8:3o am. We reunited both hen and chick in which it took all of 3 seconds for the retarded thing to fall back out of the box. I'd had my fill of saving chicks by that time so I hoisted hen and chick up with Evye gathering remaining eggs and we set off to make them a new home in the big brooder. We flipped it down from where it rested on the wall from weeks of no use. Grayson scattered hay and we placed mom and baby in safe, low to the ground brooder. It worked and there they nestle at this very moment.

Checking out our newest addition to the flock

Despitet he joy of it all we did have a sad little disturbing lesson in animal science. Stupid hen refused to quit sitting on the remainder of her eggs. I had visions of these egg rotting, stinking and being completely unsanitary in her little brooding environment with her new chick. Never dreaming that God actually created hens to know that their eggs are dead I decided to play chicken god. I gave Grayson instructions to go steal the eggs away from her and do away with them. When we incubated and the incubation time was over it was his responsibility to get rid of the eggs. He had found it highly intriguing to crack the eggs open and see which ones had been fertile. He had discovered several fully grown chicks that had died at some point in their incubation. He was able to see everything and was mesmerized by it. So, this morning he once again asked permission to crack them open. I said it was fine. Not 5 minutes later he came in the house hysterical saying that it was alive and we had ruined it. Not being able to figure out what he was talking about he finally settled down enough to inform me that the one he had cracked open did indeed having a live growing chick within. He loaded his gun to go put it out of its misery, crying the whole time. By this time I was feeling pretty guilty. I told him just to go stick it under the mama hen and let it die under her where it was cared for...since it was probably going to die anyway. He didn't seem too keen on doing this either. A little exasperated at this point I asked "Is it fully developed or what???!!!!" He shocked me by answering, "No ma'am. It's missing both legs and its beak." Ok...so that's just kinda gross. In the midst of it all I had conveniently forgotten that he had placed the other hens' eggs under Slobbery so that she could do the surrogate mother thing. BUT...she had taken over them almost a week and a half into her egg brooding. So, they would obviously hatch at different times. Oops. So, then I just felt really bad. Knowing there was no way this chick would live for more than a few minutes I told Grayson just to go shoot it. He didn't have the heart to and, sure enough, less than a minute or so after it "hatched" it was already dead. It was kinda sad. Me, in all of my farming ignorance, killed off a perfectly good chick. I hated what it did to Grayson. He said it had been very much alive and was wiggling around. Ugh! Oh the things you learn the hard way. I mean...what in the world kind of person goes messing with a hen's eggs deciding when time's up? I've watched her mother this tiny chick and am just amazed at the mothering instinct God put in animals. So why on earth do I decide suddenly that she can't figure out when her eggs are no good.

So, we left the other 2 out there for her but she's not really sitting on them anymore. Maybe that was the only reason she was still sitting.....because that one lone egg was alive. I guess we'll see. But in the meantime she is such a perfect little mama. I'm just amazed at God's perfect creation and watching Violet, our front porch cat, mother her 2 little kittens and then watching this hen. They just know what to do and will guard them with their lives. It's really fun watching it all and the children have gotten to see firsthand what it is for animals to take care of their babies. Pretty cool.

Tending to baby and eggs