It has been sooooo crazy busy with the two “situations” that took over my life in March 2022 that I didn’t even notice we were one hen short at night. Bob and Emma count chickens when they close up the coop at night. I don’t. So imagine my surprise when late one night–after a veeeeerrryyy looooong day–I heard the cheeping of chicks and found a mama hen with babies outside the coop door. It was too dark to do anything with them, so I hoped for the best and asked Bob to check on them when he got home in the middle of the night. He did and they were still there.
In the morning, I lifted up the hen to find not a few new chicks, but nine! Nine! Every single one of them was perfect and before long they were toddling along after their mama, learning the ropes of chickenhood.
There’s something about babies, even chicken babies, that makes one’s heart swell.
But what a sneaky (although very good!) mom to have disappeared somewhere, and I’ve no idea where, to hatch these little beauties when I didn’t know she was missing.
And I still don’t know where she hid to do her hatching!
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