Those Stubborn Mother Chickens

Ms. Frizzle, the bantam hen, had been broody since June. This was almost starting to become comical with her sitting on the other hens eggs all day with feathers all puffed out, emerging huffily with a string of prehistoric exclamations to eat a few bites of scratch every morning before her return trip to the nesting box. She lost enough feathers that she was beginning to look like a Jim Henson character. None of this was outside the norm, as in my experience, this is just what bantams do. I have one name Silkie who is always hatching out other chickens eggs. You can read her story Here. They are determined little mother chickens, for which they have my utmost admiration, but this had been going on all summer. Not wanting to let Ms. Frizzle go on being a freeloader and a bad example to the other girls, and not being quite sure how to get her out of her broodiness, I let her sit on a couple of the other hens eggs marked with an “X.” This culminated in one of my happiest and most exciting days this past month when a little peeping sound met my ears while I was out collecting eggs one evening, and I realized my first baby chicken had hatched out on the farm. This was followed by much sadness when the next day, in spite of my efforts to quarantine the nesting box for the hen and chick, the other chickens barged in to lay their eggs in the nesting box and pecked the chick who did not make it. After this, Ms. Frizzle continued on in her broodiness, and having known of bantam hens who kept right on being broody until they up and died, I decided to take action.

I called my favorite local feed store and they told me Rhode Island Red chicks would be in on Friday. I had always heard in theory that you could slip chicks under a broody hen, but had never tried it. The feed store owner said I didn’t even need to wait until night like I had heard. He said to just go right on in there and put the chicks under her. I followed his advice, and sure enough, she started making those contented mother hen noises as soon as she had three little fluffballs to sit on. She didn’t know or care whether they were her own chicks and they didn’t know or care whether she was their own mother chicken.

She quite literally took them right under her wing.

So, now Ms. Frizzle is happily giving foraging lessons to her three fluffy Rhode Island Red chicks. I delight in hearing the different clucking noises she makes at them when she is giving them various forms of chicken instruction. There is a “come eat this tasty morsel of insect!” cluck, a “here is how you scratch in the dirt” cluck, a “come follow me” cluck, and to the other chickens, a “get the hell away from my babies!” cluck that is more of a screech. Chickens are serious mothers. Right up there with mama bears, they earn my respect as parenting heroes of the animal kingdom. They have an inherent knack for balancing nurturing, patience,  and ferocious protection. And their stubbornness makes me smile.