Hatch Day

It was fairly early in the morning, hardly anyone was awake and the coffee had just started brewing. Having yet to taste the elixir of life, I was not at full brain capacity yet but already the goings on of the day were in full swing, at least for some of us. Hannah had been outside to feed the chickens, which of course our roo had made sure all were awake about a half hour before dawn, when she came in with the most curious question.

“Mom, there is a little chicken trying to get into the chicken coop, what do I do?”

Now, we have a flock of chickens, our neighbors to the south of us past a small walnut orchard have a flock of chickens, and the neighbors to the west of us who share our fence have a flock of chickens. This stray could just be trying to find a home for chickens who love to be spoiled as the other flocks, are not spoiled like my hens. She could have easily heard that our coop is the best coop in the neighborhood. I’m sure that’s what the roos are crowing about some days. Bragging about their coops, hens and my roo, I’m sure, bragging about his crazy chicken lady (that’s me) and her girls who love to give them treats.

I told Hannah to let the hen into the coop and we would rescue her. She clearly had no flock that she was a part of from how she was acting. Her place of origin was a mystery. Our best guess is that a hen had hidden her eggs in the orchard and was attacked by a possum, skunk or racoon and this young hen was the only survivor. We fed her, and let her free range with our flock. We think she was about 12 weeks old at this point. Solomon our wonderful roo was happy to welcome a new hen to his flock of ladies even though the other hens were all on the fence about it. No hen wants to give up her place in the pecking order unless it means a promotion. The girls aptly named her Amelia Egghart as she is a rather proficient flyer. She was establishing herself as part of the flock and the rest of our ladies were beginning to be friendly to her. A few months later, a dog took out our flock, including our beloved rooster Solomon and amazingly Amelia was the only survivor. Our little rescue was able to survive the gruesomely vicious attack and became our one and only hen.

A Girl and Her Chicken
Yes that is a chicken the house.
#spoiledchicken

She became broody last month refusing to get off of her eggs. Instead of getting her to snap out of wanting to sit, we decided she needed companions. I asked a friend of mine if I could buy some fertile eggs from her and she graciously gave us for eggs from different breeds for us to set under Amelia. We were ready and able to now expand our flock giving our lonely hen some much needed companionship.

Barnevelders, Sussex, Americauna, Cream Legbar

Amelia was more than willing to bring the eggs in under her, we had six eggs and she wasn’t too sure at first if she could fit them all under tiny body, but she figured it out and sat dutifully for 3 weeks. They are hatching out today, starting with a little pip on one and then quickly a couple of others. I know that the rest will be quick to follow. We recently did some research and figured out that she is a rosecomb blue bantam hen. These hens are not known for egg laying or going broody , but this little survivor is very much a great egg layer of the cutest little cream colored eggs and a very broody little hen.

Eager to be a Momma Hen
These eggs are more than twice the size of the egg she lays.

We cannot wait to see how many eggs hatch or if we get roos or hens. Hopefully we won’t get all roos. Waiting for the little chicks to actually hatch out of their shells once the pip appears is a superb exercise in patience. It has been about eight hours since we saw the first little pip and they are still working on breaking out of their shells.