DH, who has become the unwitting (and loving) co-caretaker of an increasingly odd* assortment of animals (because A. he has a wife who loves critters and B. he is extremely good natured about it all), was, a few months ago, somewhat taken aback when our first set of broodies presented us with four baby chicks. "I thought chickens were simple, and here I find out that they have MOODS," he complained. Well, yes. They have moods. They go broody, because this is what they were designed for - to put it clinically, to propagate their species, or, to put it a bit more warmly, to brood over, hatch and rear babies. Life is insistent, life will have its way, and unless one has been completely eaten up by cynicism, one can't help but find it a marvelous thing.
Those four baby chicks, by the way, have matured into three robust and hardy pullets and one beautiful cockerel, all of them having benefited from hybrid vigor, the result of cross-breeding. At fifteen weeks of age, the pullets are nearly as large as the full grown hens.
So, once again, life won out. A third hen (an Australorp, but a different one) went broody several weeks ago, and despite my efforts to persuade her to take up other projects (like laying eggs), she stuck to her guns, and consequently this was the scene in the coop this weekend:
* By way of example, we have a Red Star chicken named Little Char who has decided she no longer wants to be a chicken. She has moved in with the guineas. The guineas, for their part, seem happy to have her on board. Little Char steadfastly refuses the chicken coop in the evening and lingers by the door to the guinea coop until I let her in, where she contentedly roosts with her adopted family until morning.
So there it is.
UPDATE: I tried the feather sexing technique on the chicks at the day-old mark and according to this site:
Feather Sexing Pullets & Cockerels - I should have two females. Here's hoping.
