tis the season to be broody

[momma_to_seven_chi]

Since the end of June, I have only been raiding one nest box for eggs. I have six nests full of eggs with 2-3 little cochin hens sitting on each nest. Success! Today we have six new little chicks peeping out from under the hens' feathers. I even lifted one mad little pecking momma up to see two wet little ones just coming out of their shells. I am not sure how many chicks will come out of this total, but they sure are fun to watch. I didn't date the eggs, so I will just leave them for a couple more weeks to see how many hatch before I throw away the old ones so the ladies will start to mother their chicks. There must be a hundred eggs under all of them total. Hopefully we will get forty or fifty chicks.

[Deberosa]

Since the end of June, I have only been raiding one nest box for eggs. I have six nests full of eggs with 2-3 little cochin hens sitting on each nest. Success! Today we have six new little chicks peeping out from under the hens' feathers. I even lifted one mad little pecking momma up to see two wet little ones just coming out of their shells. I am not sure how many chicks will come out of this total, but they sure are fun to watch. I didn't date the eggs, so I will just leave them for a couple more weeks to see how many hatch before I throw away the old ones so the ladies will start to mother their chicks. There must be a hundred eggs under all of them total. Hopefully we will get forty or fifty chicks.

Cool - what kind of chicks are they? I would be happy to see one egg! Since the one egg last Sunday my two girls of laying age are on strike!

I do think that's the easiest way to raise chicks - let those little banties do all of the work!

[momma_to_seven_chi]

Cool - what kind of chicks are they? I would be happy to see one egg! Since the one egg last Sunday my two girls of laying age are on strike!

I do think that's the easiest way to raise chicks - let those little banties do all of the work!

I have a mixture of Americanas, silkies, and cochins. I have a few others, but most are one of those. I love banties. They are sweet, and love to brood.

[momma_to_seven_chi]

We have quite a few hatched out now. I have a few that are silkie/turken crosses. They are so cute with the furry fuzz coming in and naked necks. I hope a lot of them turn out to be pullets.

[bookwormom]

I agree that banties are cute, we used to have the feistiest banty rooster. Are you putting regular eggs under the banty hen? we got 28 chicks so far, but my mommas are regular hens.

[pcrowder]

Congratulations, mommato - You're a GRAMMA!!! They are all soooooooo cute, aren't they? My momma duck hatched out 10 ducks 2 wks ago, plus I ended up buying another 12 ducks and some turkens from a hatchery. I just loooove those turken babies!!!!!!!

[momma_to_seven_chi]

I put all the eggs under the banty hens. I just had one small nest that I raided for enough eating eggs all month. There were at least a hundred eggs between all the other nest boxes. Most of them had two or three little hens brooding the nest. I have had three roosters this year, a turken, a silkie, and a frizzle cochin. I also have a young polish, but he isn't mating yet. Since we had so many babies from those roosters, I sent them to market, but have another silkie and that polish to replace them. I'm not interested in purebred chickens, just egg-laying, brooding chickens that are pretty to look at. I love bantams too. They do give small eggs, but they are faithful.

Ducks! I sold so many ducks this spring! They laid better in the spring than the hens did! I actually sold out all my ducks and gave the last few away to a friend. I didn't like the smell. I hope you enjoy yours more than we did.