February 24, 2012

11 chicks hatched today to this little hen. She sat on the eggs in the dog house. There's another hen sitting on eggs in the other corner. Good thing the dog sleeps in the big house. There are at least 4 hens sitting on at least a dozen eggs each. I wonder if it's the classical music I play for them every night at roosting time.

February 25, 2012

7 chicks missing! Call an Amer Alert! Mother is frantically looking for her 7 missing babies. The perpetrator was seen hiding the babies in her feathers and unhatched eggs in the chicken coop.

Last night I checked on everyone and found that this hen had moved in on another hen's corner of the coop where that hen was sitting on a dozen eggs. She had apparently evicted the motherless hen from her eggs and moved herself and her 11 babies into the nest. This morning, the original hen was back on her eggs and had abducted 7 of the new mothers' babies. The babies don't seem to know what happened and appear to be perfectly warm and happy under their adopted mothers' feathers. It remains to be seen if she continues to sit on her eggs or teaches her adoptees to scratch for food..