[Sca-cooks] Announcing.... CHICKENS ;-)

[Phlip]

After many trials and tribulations*, Cogburn and his Lady are pleased to
announce the arrival of 9 little bundles of fluff- one pale lemon yellow, 4
buff, like Mama, 2 dk brown, and 2 more black, like Cogburn was at that age.
Several of them have a cute little white dot on the tops of their heads.
Won't know how many cockerels or pullets until they get older, and really
won't know what they're going to look like, since they're crossed (
Cogburn's a Barred Rock, with, I suspect, some Rhode Island Red mixed in-
Mama's a Buff Orpington), so there's no telling.

Mama's still setting one egg, so, since I've never raised chickens with a
hen doing most of the work before, I went over to the local Purina salesman,
who raises a lot of chickens, and asked advice. He said that he'd give her a
week to set the last egg, and suggested feeding them hard-boiled eggs with
their mash and grit, since they're going to be kept caged for a while.

Just tried that, and they loved it. Happy little peeps ;-)

So, we now have a mini flock- I'm looking forward to the results ;-)

* Figured some of you might not be interested in the details of my hen's
Trials and Tribulations, so if so, quit reading here. For those who are,
interested, though, keep reading ;-)

I got the hen last fall, after the last of Cogburn's original hens got
invited to a chicken dinner over at the local raccoon's den, because since
Cogburn was going to be outside all winter, he needed a couple more birds in
his coop to help keep him warm. Well, as usual, instead of hanging out in
the nice warm coop, Idiot Cogburn and his ladies hung out on the back porch
on and old washer dryer, unless the snow got beak high, when Cogburn would
want breakfast in bed- Cogburn manged to get his comb frostbitten ;-) They
survived, and a few weeks ago, one of the ladies disappeared, and we were
afraid she'd been invited to dinner also, but we discovered her brooding a
dozen or so eggs under the hydrangia bushes, and thought we'd let her be,
hoping for a nice brood of peeps.

It wasn't to be. We're not quite sure what happened- early one morning all
was well (she was right outside the window, so we could check on her without
disturbing her), but later that day, she abandoned the nest, with no peeps
in tow, and when I looked, all the eggs had disappeared, with no broken
shells left behind. All we could figure was that a snake had gotten them,
which left us with an odd image of Mr Snake heading off to his den...

  Y
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Very odd looking snake....

Anyway, she was showing up daily now, but the other hen disappeared. We were
hoping she'd gone broody, but we couldn't find her. She never has
reappeared.

And then, the new Mama disappeared again, and we were afraid that she'd been
gotten, too (NOTHING will attack Cogburn- he's too mean ;-) A few days ago,
she reappeared, to get a bite to eat and take a dust bath. She was funny-
Cogburn, quite naturally, wanted to cover her, and she dropped her head and
her wings, and said, "I DARE you, you Son of a Bird!!!!". He reconsidered.

Anyway, she headed back to her nest, and I followed her, to find out where
it was. We collected her and her eggs, unfortuately losing one, when she was
angry and getting settled (but it did tell us that the chicks were pretty
close to term), and Monday, I heard little peeping sounds, and spotted one
black little foot, but I didn't check on them or disturb her, so I didn't
know how many we had.

Yesterday, I got her a new cage set up, and moved her and the babies, and
asked, as I mentioned, someone who knows more than I do for advice, and
that's the rest of the story. I'm glad she decided to hatch a new brood-
they're CUTE little babies ;-)

Saint Phlip,
CoDoLDS

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....