Spring Chicks

 

These are the first two chicks that were hatched here on our little farm that we like to Serendipity.   It's pretty amazing to hear the peeps while the eggs are still whole, to watch the cracks appear, then to see a wet little scrap of chick eventually pop out.

There's no telling how much time I've spent just watching them with their mamas. Mama hens know exactly what to do to teach those babies everything they need to know. 

 

I try to leave them alone, but oh, my goodness!!! How can I not hold them just a little bit!!

 

We've gotten fertilized eggs a few times so a broody hen could have some babies, but we do it differently now.  When a hen gets broody, I go to the store and buy some chicks that are just a couple of days old.  Once it's dark outside, we go out with the babies and slip them one by one under the hen sitting in the nesting box.  The next morning she wakes up proud of her new family.  We've done it this way several times, and it's been successful.

Why?

• We can get pullets (baby hens) instead of the 50/50 gamble of eggs being hens/roosters.
• We can get the breed we want. (I like variety in my hens' feather color and in my egg colors.)
• The hen doesn't have to sit weeks and weeks in the hot nesting box waiting for the unfertilized eggs, fake eggs, and golf balls that she's sitting on.
• We have never wanted the trouble of having a rooster. (Although, we seem to have one now...) 

What have we learned?

• Take the eggs, fake eggs, and golf balls out as you put the babies under.  The chicks are still so tiny and fragile. The mama has gone to sleep not realizing that she'll wake up sitting on babies.  The extra eggs can cause a baby to get smashed between them. Sometimes it happens anyway.
• Arkansas law doesn't allow farm supply stores to sell less than 6 chicks.  We try to wait until a couple of hens are broody so we can give them each 3.  
• Lots of things can keep a chick from reaching a year old. (Getting crushed, just not thriving, hawks...) We've found that about 1 in 3 makes it to lay her first egg.

We got our first 3 chickens 4 years ago and enjoy them so much.

My weekly art challenge theme was "Easter."  So many symbols of Easter... A cross, an empty tomb... white lilies, tulips... bonnets, baskets, bunnies... colored eggs... Eggs? Chicks!  I remembered the photos I'd taken of these babies thinking that one day I'd paint them.  I guess this was the day!

Original Oil Painting on 6"x 6" Wrapped Canvas

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