Sunday, May 6, 2012

I'm overrun with babies!! Help!

Well, the hen finally hatched out her nest, five adorable fuzz balls are running around like little crazy people! I may not have told you but this hen didn't have the sense God gave a crowbar in the fact that she made her nest in the top nestboxes right in the middle (the top nestbox is about 2 1/2 feet high). She got confused multiple times and sat on eggs that the other birds had laid in other nest boxes and the goofy bird switched nests on me about half a dozen times! She finally settled on the top middle nestbox and settled in for 28 days... This meant that I had to go out to the coop around 10- 12 times a day to keep all the eggs cleaned up so she wouldn't switch nestboxes again. Finally, the 28th day came and one after the other chicks just popped out, two black ones, a yellow one, a red one, and a kind of speckly striped one. I don't have another bird like it so I have NO clue where it came from!! Then came operation Evacuate. The remaining 14 hens and rooster needed to be evicted because they were already trying to kill the babies. I threw food in the other side of the coop, I tried to herd them in there, I tried to reason with a chicken. That doesn't work by the way. So we had to do it the good ol' fashioned way. By hand. My two year old came in to help and had loads of fun helping mommy chase the chickens like a mad man! I chased and grabbed and dove, and jumped, and ran and ran until I was dripping in sweat and I had two birds left. I eyed my prizes think there's only two left now.. how bad could it be? I stepp toward one of the hens, I took another step closer, I slowly reached down, aannnndddd I got flown at. Right in the face. Angry I grabbed the first thing I could catch, and it just so happened to be her tail. While trying to get a better hold on her she kept fighting and fighting, then all of sudden I was left in a shower of...... feathers. Whoops.... I accidentally pulled out her tail! She's none the worse for wear, she was actually alot easier to deal with after that but every time I go out to the chicken coop I have to smile, because there she is, in all her tail-less glory!

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