The other day my oldest yelled to me that we had chicks! My first thought was "I knew that we weren't finding all the eggs!" One of the hens had gotten quite good at hiding them from us :) Sure enough, there she was, proudly displaying her 4 chicks. So cute & fluffy! Look at them trying to eat the pellets, it was all I had when they arrived and we have since put them on chicky crumbles.
The next day we had 5! I chose to let my free range hen raise them herself, and due to the natural attrition rate (our cats haven't touched them and appeared to be rather frightened of the hen that doubles in size and SCREAMS at them whenever they come close), we are now down to 2. But we do have Mongoose and Hawks and I think survival of the fitest has come into play as the chicks that didn't stick close to mom are the ones missing. :(
They seem to be doing really well and are fully feathered out now, heading to a new home this week. I will miss seeing them but I think one of the other hens is already looking for a new place to hide her eggs :))
