broody

We have a lot of broody happening here. Broody in the 2nd sense of the word, rather than the first. We have 3 incredibly broody hens, and one goose. So far, only one hen has hatched any chicks, but it’s early days still.

We have one little banty hen that is currently sitting on 15 eggs! 15! Those banty hens are so small, how can she possibly sit on 15 eggs? We’re not exactly sure how she could possibly fluff herself up enough to cover all those eggs, but she does! Luckily for her, and all our broodies, we’ve been having some incredibly hot days, so the hens can get some time off of their nests. Earlier today, I saw this little lady taking a nice dust bath. We’re not exactly sure when she started sitting, so don’t know when to expect her chicks to hatch. Sue said that the dogs were really interested in the cage this morning, so maybe there is one baby.

Maeve and another hen were sitting on eggs in the top brooder; five have hatched but several eggs were still in the nests. We were hoping that they could continue to share the brooder, continue to sit on the remaining eggs and raise the chicks together. However – this afternoon I caught Maeve bullying the other hen and running around the chicks. Earlier we had found a chick crushed in the brooder. So this incident shed a bit of light on what may have happened. We removed Maeve from the situation. Left the mama alone in there with her babies. We’ll see how they do. This is a quick photo of three of the chicks – they were running around along.

I wanted to take a photo of Roma on her nest as well, but she was not happy with the whole photography session. So this is the best I could do. She hissed at me the entire time I was trying to focus on something other than the welded wire. Then Octave heard her and started getting upset. Rather than have to fend off an angry goose papa, I decided to go with this photo. We’re not sure how far along the goose eggs are at this point, but Sue thinks that she might have one more week to go. I suppose Roma will be the one to decide when she’s done sitting.

The final one we have that is exceptionally broody is Imen. Imen is out in the RCW – we don’t let her sit eggs because we’re not even sure that the banty rooster, Vicente, has been able to fertilize the hens out there; they are so much bigger than him and not very compliant. Anyway, Imen is quite broody, so we find her on a few eggs every day. All we have to do is pick her up, remove the eggs and put her back. We do this every day. Sometimes she comes out on her own for a time to get snacks and water, but she’s very dedicated to her little spot. I took a quick video of this whole process to share with you, because I think it’s so funny.