4 Mamas -- 3 Babies

The days aren't long enough for all I want to do -- just a few quick pictures here: a bearded iris and a shy garter snake like a folded ribbon . . .

I wish I knew what this odd iris is -- a bearded iris? It has the right form -- the three upright standards and the three falls. But it's much smaller than other bearded irises and has, somehow, a more primitive look to it. Does anyone have a clue?

 

And here are the mommas and babies.  If you click on the picture, it will take you to a web album where it will be a little video of them all bustling about.

This is the story: Justin and Claui have four banty hens in their chicken tractor. One of the girls decided she wanted to be a mother and began brooding a clutch of eggs. But, as there is no rooster in with these girls, her brooding was doomed to failure.

So Justin took four eggs from our Ameracuanas -- who share their coop with a fine Buff Orpington rooster that delights in making sure that their eggs are fertile -- and put them under the broody hen. 

Twenty-one days later, three eggs hatched and she was a mama. But the other three hens, several of which had tried to sit on the eggs too, were pretty sure that they were mamas too.

At this point, Justin and Claui can no longer be sure which hen was the original broody. The bantys seem happy to share the chicks. And the chicks always have a mama handy to hide under.

What, More Chickens?!?

Susan asked, a while back, if the fancy-schmancy chicken tractor might be too confining for the chickens. Well, yes and no. Here's the saga -- to date.

We had started by putting the new little guys in but they seemed to be having trouble figuring out going to roost upstairs and were sleeping in a pile on the grass.

So we moved them to the big chicken house and selected three full-grown hens (the three who were most aggressively picking on our young chickens) as the new occupants of the chicken tractor. They moped a bit but seemed to be settling in. Still we felt kinda bad -- they'd spent years in the chicken yard with the rooster and the other two hens -- and now they were in a smaller space wondering what happened. Hmmm.

Eureka! We decided to try some bantam chickens -- a rooster and six diminutive hens. They'll get bigger but they'll still be half the size of regular chickens. They will lay small eggs (I can't wait to make deviled eggs with them!) and a bonus is that bantams will go broody (sit on a nest for the 21 days it takes to hatch out eggs,) a trait that has been bred out of many full-size hens. We can put big chicken eggs under them and raise our own replacements! If nothing don't happen that is -- don't want to start counting my chickens before they hatch -- or before the bantys get old enough to go broody.



The bantys are really cute -- and they seem happy as can be in their new home. Meanwhile, the three hens are back with their friends after the enforced time-out -- and not near so intent on pecking the young chickens.

I think that the key to having the chickens happy in the chicken tractor is to put them in before they're full grown and used to more freedom. John is building another chicken tractor for Justin and Claui's garden and we'll put three of the young Ameruacanas in. At least that's the plan.

Stay tuned for future chicken updates!