Chicken littles.

  The flock on our mini farm has been growing for a while now. But this year we had a snafu. One of my broody hens gave up in protest for some reason. Abandoning her share of eggs and the chill hadn't left the air quite yet. Ming was on her own with way too many eggs and she hopped back and forth with no real way of covering all of them at one time.

 With worry of false starts and development problems I barrowed an incubator to salvage what we could. This round was special because it contained the coveted chocolate colored egg layers called Black Copper Marans. Beautiful hens and even more adorable as chicks looking just like baby penguins. Also in this hatch were several of Fancy the rooster and Mings babies. Our first Feltifarm breed stock attempt. I left Ming with a couple of each and brought the rest indoors and hoped for the best.

  Candling revealed movement and development which gave me hope we would have at least one or two of Ming/Fancy babies. But the dark Marans shells are impossible to see into so they were a gamble and a mystery.

 Twenty one days and nothing. Twenty two and we had one single pip in the tiniest egg in the incubator. Twenty three and we had our first chick. Typically chicks will hatch on day twenty one give or take a day. So one baby was not a good number. And not a single sign of life under Ming outside.

Then finally a chocolate egg pipped. Then hatched quickly into a sweet tired penguin.

 And still none under Momma Ming. So I prepared to clean out the duds from the incubator and under my hen, trying to feel glad for the two that made it. Thinking that we have been lucky with past hatches because the broody girls did such a great job mothering. And then my husband checked the incubator just in case and saw another pipped egg. Which also hatched into a marans baby. Giving us a perfectly healthy trio.

 Counting your chickens before they are hatched is really stupid after all it would seem. Because when I went out to clean up the dud from under Ming there was an Easter baby. Which was very shocking considering that was at about 28 days!

 She knew something I didn't because she still wasn't getting up. And we let her be. She hatched one of her own and one penguin for me like a good momma. And then chased those busy babies around leaving the nest cold.

 Last night when I came home I had to be what my hilariously accurate friend dubbed the "chicken doula". And our last little miracle babe was born.

( science can be graphic ya'll) 

 So crazy and magical that I can't recall even speaking during this so I sound funny to myself. I have watched the four minute version of this about a hundred times now. 

She hatched and dried and is perfect. I feel very lucky to have caught that pipped egg and I feel lucky that my husband put it in the brooder box under the heat lap with our incubator babies even though he was sure she was a goner from being cold.

So, I decided to try to sneak these sweeties in under momma and hope she accepts the whole bunch as her own. I would say so far so good. And I took a moment to capture these 6 lucky little peepers in something frame worthy for the mom den. Because I am now officially the crazy chicken lady who posted a birth story about chickens. And I love it.

Who you callin' chicken?

 I have wanted a small flock of yard birds for a really long time. Always a girl with a farm and/or zoo in my heart, I would adopt massive amounts of animals if left to my own devises. Thankfully my hubs is more rational when it comes to an Ark worthy collection of beasts. Three years and a much more reasonably sized backyard later, I have my hens. And though he gave me an impossible challenge ( "we can get chickens if it doesn't cost me anything") I nearly complied.

 I researched all the cute breeds. I googled all the things about all the things. I weighed the pros and cons of chicks vs pullets ( chicks not yet of laying age but not in need of heat lamps and baby care). I read all the fun blogs from The City Chicken to Chicken Blog to The Chicken Chic ( non of which asked me to link anything, I just do because I liked them). While learning more and more about the awesome things having chickens can bring to my garden/farm, I just solidified my conquest. The next step was the coop.

 Coops are insanely priced. I will be super honest about how stupid I think that might be. NOT saying some aren't really cool looking. Just saying a coop for chickens had better not look cooler or be more well built than my kids play house. Nor does it need scalloped trim and shutters ( I was all "squeeeeeee shutters!!!" and then I was all, STFU it's a hen house!"). I realizes pretty quickly that building one was way smarter for my "not costing anything" goal. Because $349 costs a bunch.

 We have a local place that is wickedly awesome!!! It's called ReStore and everything about what it stands for makes me want to remodel my home and help others at the same time. If you have one of these locations near you I can pretty much guarantee you will walk in and wish you had always known it existed. I fell in love after a friend brought me. That friend and I walked the aisles in search of the perfect cabinet or hutch to convert into a recycled hen house. Deep in the kitchen cast offs we found an unfinished, solid pine project. Combined with the free pallets also collected from ReStore, I made this.

  Next I went all DIY crazytown and built a run from salvage wood bought for 12 cents a foot from the same beloved store. And the final home pen was completed.

 We got our laying hens from a neighboring town with much farmland. A chance happening where you make a connection you hadn't seen coming at all. This gal was a momma to a ten year old 4H chicken wrangler that looked like a teeny tiny Taylor Swift in Chicken mucking galoshes. Mom had posted an ad on craigslist because the eggs she had from her hens, plus the eggs she got from a hatchery, plus the eggs she acquired online all yielded ladies when they hatched. She had counted on the amount of roosters being greater and thus she wanted to unload some hens. Did you know that birds from one clutch of eggs will flock with themselves? And each group of eggs she got made a mini flock. Instead of combining, they kept with their own. I found that pretty interesting. Anyhow, we adopted four of her feathered girls and as we were leaving she pointed out that one was smaller than the other three. After explaining pecking order to my ten year old and then deciding that two little would be better than one  she went back into the hen house and brought out a pretty little silver girl with blue feet! Also small. And she came home us too. She is named Lady Rainicorn as per our sweet little 4 year old friend. She made five. Five lady birds in a chicky condo about a month or two from laying age. Perfect amount of time for them to get comfy and free range the yard before they start making us eggs.

 So far the chickens are happy and my kiddos couldn't be more into it. The ten year old loves to feed them new treats like fresh peas or blackberries and watch them go crazy. They are not as hand tamed as they might have been from chicks, but I'd say they like us quite a bit. I especially like how the follow Aidan around at a safe distance, curious of his every move. He is starting to hand feed them too and sing Old Macdonald had a Farm. Every E-I-E-I-O makes my heart flutter. I am so grateful for these new friends for so many reasons. I am sure there will be more stories but I will really try to keep the Crazy Chicken Lady stuff to a minimum.

  Also, you can't have a chicken and not name it Beyonce.

Lady Rainicorn, Queen Elizabeth, Buffy and Beyonce.

 

 Oh, and the whole chicken mission was nearly free. Nearly being less than $60. Once these hormone free free range eggs start appearing I think hubs will feel like $60 pretty much cost him nothing.