It’s Thursday already, and the post I had planned to write this week about writing communities fell prey to the twin vicissitudes of my busy day job and the “farm life” brought about by keeping chickens. We had a (relatively) late broody hen [1] and as I’d continued to lay aside brood eggs throughout the summer we decided to let her have her wish one last time. So four weeks ago, I put twelve eggs under potential mommy hen. Like in the story.
Day 21 is usually hatching day, the one with the excitement. So last Wednesday, I went to the hatching enclosure every hour or two to check – nothing. Thursday: nothing. Could all eggs be non-viable? She hadn’t thrown any out of the nest in the second week, which usually means that there weren’t any unfertilized ones. We continued to wait.
Finally, Friday saw two little black heads peeking out from under the wings. And when mommy hen got up and the two ran around after her, we thought that was it – once she gets up for extended periods it’s usually a sign that hatching is over. Two of twelve is not great, but that’s nature. It is what it is.
Only, on Saturday morning, there was another chick in the enclosure. The weather was fairly cold, and the new chick weak; it was in danger of getting cold when mommy hen moved around and it couldn’t get under her wings for warm. So we brought it inside; I still have the equipment from a few years ago when we tried artificial incubation. We called it Butzi.[2]
Butzi didn’t stay alone: on Sunday, there was ANOTHER new chick with mommy hen when I opened her coop. Butzi #2 was even weaker, and it had splayed legs and crooked feet. Both are treatable, so treat we did, with taping and rubber bands and actual physical therapy. It didn’t work as we had hoped; the little one stayed weak, and yesterday we had to put it out of its misery. Sad face.
On the bright side, when I looked into the hatching enclosure on Tuesday, there was a third chick that I swear wasn’t there when I last check the afternoon before. In case you’ve been counting: that’s day 26 or 27! Conventional wisdom says that the hatch is definitely over after day 24, especially if the hen lets the eggs cool out. So much for conventional wisdom! Chick #5 was doing much better than it’s previous two siblings, a bit smaller (obviously) but otherwise as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the others. And since Butzi was well enough to go back to the others, mommy now had four chicks to take care of.[3]
And that’s why I didn’t have time for my planned post. Next week. I won’t promise, because, vicissitudes. But I’ll do my best.
Notes:
[1] She’s a serial incubator, this is the third time this year.
[2] In southern German dialect, “armes Butzele” means something like “poor little thing”, in an affectionate way.
[3] No, not all chicks are yellow, especially if they are not commercial breeds. Ours tend to be all black with some splotches of white; the dad is a Poule noir de Caussade, a black Caussade chicken, a very old regional breed.
Downside of black chicks is they’re really hard to take pictures of outside. The fourth one is by mommy hen, and you can hardly see it because of the shadows.