One, Little Two, Little Three, Little chickies...

If you are my "friend" on facebook, you are familiar with the story of the assassination of my chickens. If not, here goes.

We were leaving for one of Buzzy's last baseball games and when leaving our dog was acting funny. Steve glanced to see what the silliness was for and there were two dogs inside my chicken coop. They had pulled the fence up and climbed right in. All of my chickens, or so I thought, were scattered on the ground. The dogs were so proud of their accomplishment, but, needless to say, I was not. I stormed over to the neighbors house, which requires a car, to inform them of the murders.

The fella came to retrieve his dogs from my coop. As I was observing the scene, I noticed that I only saw two chicks and there had been three. I began searching for the one lost chick and found it! It had forced itself behind a post and was practically buried in the dirt. I rescued the frantic little chick and placed it safely inside the rabbit hutch with the rabbit. So... a couple days later, guess what! The rabbit fence was pulled up and the rabbit was gone. Since the chick was inside a box, inside of the hutch, it was safe. She has grown and is now playing Momma herself.

Buzzy was eager to get the one little chick a friend. I promised that as soon as we were home from vacation, we would go and get her a couple friends. On Tuesday, Buzzy, Cooper, Henry and I went to Luke's Flea Market to make our purchases. I planned on getting 4, but somehow we ended up with 8! Buzzy and Cooper each got to pick 2 and I picked 4! I guess that since I take care of them, I can pick the number!

Anyway, this picture was taken on May 26. One of the little brownish chicks in now the "Mother Hen" to our newest additions! She is a young, unwed mother, but a wonderful mother she is!

When we first put the chicks in the cage, she acted scared of them. That evening when I went to check on them. There were no chicks to be found! I wondered what she had done to/with them!

Then they started appearing!

I placed them in a "nest box."

And she went right back to her job of mothering! She sits on them at night just like her little Momma did her just over one month ago! I have always heard of women acting like "mother hens" and I have now witnessed it first hand! This little chicken, that is just over a month old herself, has taken these little babies "under her wing" and would give her own life for them!

I have a friend that refers to herself as the "crazy cat lady!" I guess I'm the "crazy chicken lady!" These chickens have taught me so much about mothering. My original hen could have easily ran into the chicken house when the dogs appeared, but she stayed out with her little chicks. The baby chicks hadn't learned how to climb the entrance ramp, so she stayed, giving her life to protect them. Now her one surviving baby has taken 8 little orphans as her own. She pecks at my hand each time I try to touch one of her babies! Isn't it funny the lessons that can be learned from animals and nature?