Two weeks ago, my order of day-olds arrived. The evening before, something killed two of my three adolescent birds. For the first week, we brought Vanilla into the garage for the night and she slept on top of the brooder box. When my husband finished our secure coop inside the bigger coop, we put the brooder box out there and Vanilla spent another week sleeping on top of the box. Friday, I decided the box was getting too small and I partitioned off a section of the coop for the chicks. I thought I had made barriers high enough to keep Vanilla out just in case she wanted to hurt the chicks. Apparently, I was wrong about the barriers because Saturday morning when my daughter and I went out to feed, there was Vanilla in the shelter I had built for the chicks. My heart stopped for a minute while I did a quick head count, but all babies are safe and accounted for. It seems Vanilla has taken on an Auntie roll and is now spending her time hanging out with the chicks and keeping them safe. I was so worried she would try to hurt them, I'm so glad I was wrong.
