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GentlewoodFarms
June 4, 2012

Ginger's Little Family

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This morning, when I went out to turn out the chickens, I saw a tiny yellow head peeping out from under my brooding hen. She wouldn't let me look, so I wasn't sure how many had hatched, but I was sure there were two because I also saw a little leg on the other side of her chest. I went back down there this afternoon to check her water, and she's brought them out of the nesting box to the floor of the coop.

This is my first clutch to hatch, so I don't know what to expect, really. I don't know if now that she's left the nest, she'll go back and sit on the eggs that are still in it, or if she'll just raise these two. She's lost quite a bit of her own body weight, but I'm sure that she'll gain it back quickly, and it's obvious that now that the babies are here, she feels sort of liberated. She shows all the signs of being a good mother, even though she has never had babies before. So she and I are going to be "first timer's" together.

Neither of these babies is biologically hers. She lays white eggs, and all the ones that she's been sitting on are brown. The yellow chick is Ruby's, my Rhode Island Red, and the darker one belongs to one of the Barred Rocks, no way to know which one.

But Ginger is VERY proud of them, and the truth is, she's done all the dedicated work to getting these babies hatched. She sat on that nest for three weeks, leaving it only for a minute or two to get a drink of water or get some chicken feed.

It's the old nature vs nurture debate in a micro-world in my little chicken coop. Ginger KNOWS these babies are hers, and these babies KNOW she's their momma. The question is settled in everyone's mind.

Good hen.


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