On 1/11 hatched out two of the original 9 eggs I gave her . Four eggs disappeared along the way so I can only assume she ate them because I could find no trace of them. Of the remaining 5, two hatched. The neighbor who gave me the eggs suspects the chicks are probably blue orpingtons based on the coloring and knowledge of her flock and the eggs she gave me. It still amuses me that my girl can sit on eggs that were never her own and happily raise the two chicks she hatched. She is doing a fine job with them, letting them run by her, but still settling down to let them warm under her again, though we have actually had somewhat of a heat wave with temperatures reaching near 40 the past couple of days.Did your Austra indeed hatch her clutch? I hope so, I would love to see pictures if you have any. I wonder if she looks like my girl.
I don't have any real good pictures of mama, but her are two that I took of the chicks.
Mama is mostly white, but she has a few more black feathers visible than my other Austra-Whites so it should always be easy to distinguish her from the others I have.
I have her partitioned off along side a broody Australorp. I have an incubator hatch that could be going on even now and I plan to give any chicks from that one to the Australorp. It's my first time doing that so we will see how it goes. In the meantime, the broodies and the two chicks seem to be coexisting well enough.We'll see what happens when I had some more chicks to the mix.
If I can get some more photos, I'll try to get some more on. Thanks for asking.