Today, I chose to take it easy...no work in the garden until 8:30pm when I took the girls out to potty. I pulled grass from the asparagus bed.
Instead, I cleaned the brooders, fed the pens of breeders and cleaned all the water containers.
Then lunch and decided to take a nap!
Then....
Found two hatched babies in a broody nest! So I pulled all the eggs from under the 8 broody hens...two hens had 15 and 18 eggs. The others had from 6 to 12 each. All eggs were in different stages of development because the other hens were laying in their nests too.
So I candled and divided them by days of development...5, 10, 15, 18 and due. Clear eggs went to the kitchen. Anything else under 5 days will be scrambled for the flock.
After marking and dating the incubating eggs, I gave the 5 due eggs to the hen with the two chicks. And gave sets of eggs to each of the hens sitting in a nest box. The banty hens each got 6 eggs and the large fowl girls got 10.
One broody hen was deciding on a nest...wanting to settle with a hen already on eggs.
I took 10 chicks that hatched yesterday and gave 6 to the hen with the two hatched babies. She will end up with 13 when her 5 eggs hatch tonight or in the morning. She was so tickled to take her babies...nearly ate my hand.
The other 4 chicks I gave to one of the banty hens with 6 eggs because she had been sharing the nest with the hen with the two chicks earlier in the day. She was really sweet cluck talking to her babies and eggs. This way, when she takes her babies to the floor in the morning, the extra broody hen will adopt the 6 eggs and have a nest all her own.
I've learned to think like a chicken.
Then I rounded up the ducks to go to coop. Locked up the chickens, checked on all the babies, cleaned the hatching tray.
Had a sandwich hubby made me for a late dinner. Took the dogs out and pulled that grass.
I'm all showered and ready for bed!
Here are the 7 Delaware bantam chicks...I promised a picture... Just for
@Texas Kiki I put in fresh paper towels for the second photo.
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