TropicalChickies
Crowing
My top hen Cleo (4 years old) has been exhibiting some interesting behavior I'd like to share.
In the past five months, there's been three hatches here on our farm. Each and every time, for about a week after the chicks hatch, Cleo goes around clucking in a "broody voice" pecking at the ground, scratching, pulling out little pieces of grass, etc. as though she were teaching baby chicks how to forage and eat. She doesn't do this anywhere near the chicks and the hen who is actually mothering them. She just goes around with her imaginary brood clucking away a few times a day. After a week or so, she stops.
Cleo is unusual among my hens in that she has never once shown a desire to sit on eggs. I didn't have a rooster for about 2.5 years and in that absence, she took over roostering. She has been the one to determine when a new pullets is accepted. She inspects the coop when I make any small changes (new bedding, a roost extension, etc) and makes warning sounds to the others until her inspection is done. When our five month old cockerel, Lucio, was put on the spot to "step up" when his mother and dominant brother tragically died in a freak accident, it was Cleo who "trained" him how to go around the perimeter of the coop area in the evening and make sure it was safe for everyone.
Lucky for me, she is very confident, fair, indifferent to drama or squabbling among the others, and as long as everyone knows she's large and in charge, does not bully.
So I think she's just been too busy roostering to be bothered with setting eggs. But she shows these interesting flashes of "mothering" nonetheless. Has anyone else observed this in a chick-less hen?
Cleo. Monarch of all she surveys.
In the past five months, there's been three hatches here on our farm. Each and every time, for about a week after the chicks hatch, Cleo goes around clucking in a "broody voice" pecking at the ground, scratching, pulling out little pieces of grass, etc. as though she were teaching baby chicks how to forage and eat. She doesn't do this anywhere near the chicks and the hen who is actually mothering them. She just goes around with her imaginary brood clucking away a few times a day. After a week or so, she stops.
Cleo is unusual among my hens in that she has never once shown a desire to sit on eggs. I didn't have a rooster for about 2.5 years and in that absence, she took over roostering. She has been the one to determine when a new pullets is accepted. She inspects the coop when I make any small changes (new bedding, a roost extension, etc) and makes warning sounds to the others until her inspection is done. When our five month old cockerel, Lucio, was put on the spot to "step up" when his mother and dominant brother tragically died in a freak accident, it was Cleo who "trained" him how to go around the perimeter of the coop area in the evening and make sure it was safe for everyone.
Lucky for me, she is very confident, fair, indifferent to drama or squabbling among the others, and as long as everyone knows she's large and in charge, does not bully.
So I think she's just been too busy roostering to be bothered with setting eggs. But she shows these interesting flashes of "mothering" nonetheless. Has anyone else observed this in a chick-less hen?
Cleo. Monarch of all she surveys.
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