To Brood or Not To Brood?

I know it almost certainly may appear as though nothing else is happening in my life but chickens, and the care of same, however, a disclaimer:

I do spend time in other pursuits, such as reading, the making of art, gardening and hiking...I also spend time with my horses. The horses have been shedding their winter coats and grooming them means a veritable storm of hair and dust in the air around me - and the occasional coughing fit when some of it ends up in my throat. No sooner do I brush them out than they roll in whatever mud or muck they can avail themselves of in the paddocks...and we begin again. They're like big kids.

Just so you know that I do have a life outside of chickens. I didn't say it was a particularly exciting life, did I? Nay, that I did not.

It's just that something always seems to be going on with the ladies - they are so full of life and energy that writing about them seems to come naturally. I suppose I'll probably bore everyone to distraction when the Guinea keets arrive on the first of May! (Yes, I'm looking forward to my army of tick eradicators!)

Anyway, getting back to the main thrust of my post...my pullets are almost seven months old, and have been laying very nicely since the end of January. I fully expected the broodiness issue would present itself at some point, next year perhaps, or at some vastly inconvenient time, say, when it's -4〫outside. Not so. Approximately two weeks ago, one of my Buff Orpington girls began to exhibit signs of extreme grumpiness - walking around with her wings outstretched, screaming, growling and puffing up at the others, and screaming at me if I came near her while she was on the nest. She hadn't settled, and I wasn't sure if this was a "trial run," but, lo and behold, four days ago she settled, seemingly committed to brooding (and hatching) three eggs and two golf balls.

I finally moved her yesterday, because the others really need the nesting space she had been occupying, and because her broodiness seems to have inspired one of the Australorps...who hasn't laid an egg in two days, but who is also hunkered down on two golf balls...! Miss Belle is in a broody cage with her own nest, food and water, her three eggs under her, smooshed down on them like a pancake and growling at anything or anyone who comes near her. I am about to try to break up the broodiness of the Australorp by moving her away from her nest for a couple of days.

So, to brood or not to brood? Yes...and no. The Australorp will eventually have her turn at being a mama; we are nothing if not democratic here at The Carriage House Farm. I just don't think I can manage two or more crabby girls at the moment, so we'll just allow Miss Belle to carry her maternal instinct as far as it takes her, and allow Miss Sarah to try the next time she feels the urge.