- Nov 4, 2025
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I have been wanting to share this story for awhile, so hopefully everyone finds it interesting and entertaining. I'm sorry for how long it is!
One summer my Ameraucana hen named Blossom decided to go broody. This was my first time dealing with a broody hen of my own so it was definitely a learning experience. Blossom decided to go broody in one of the nesting boxes in the coop. Unfortunately I soon learned what a mean, crabby broody hen looks like.
Well, she wasn't mean to me but I cannot say the same thing for how she acted to my other hens. With her in the nesting box she decided that the surrounding nesting boxes were only meant for her and she would harass and chase away all the other hens. I came to the conclusion that she needed to be moved to her own small coop so my other hens could continue to lay eggs in peace.
She at that point was sitting on 6 eggs, only two of them were her own. I was a bit worried about moving her and her nest, as she was already over a week into sitting on them. But I moved her anyway, and disappointingly Blossom didn't take the change of scenery very well. She freaked out, broke two of her eggs and kept leaving her nest for long periods of time.
I was quite concerned about her reaction, after all this was my first time dealing with my own broody hen.
To make matters worse she stopped eating and drinking entirely, looking back at that with more experience I know this can be common with broody hens but for me I was quite anxious for her at the time.
Through all of the mishaps and worry I tried to remain optimistic, counting down the days until her chicks were due to start hatching. At this point she was only sitting on three eggs, after breaking two and me taking two infertile ones away.
The day of the long awaited hatching came with no signs of pips or chicks and I was uneasy.
But there was still a chance so I let her sit on them a bit longer and sure enough one started to pip!
But it wasn't a happy ending...
The chick was almost fully out of the shell when I found it dead. Blossom wasn't even on her nest at the time I found it.
I lost hope after a few days later, no more chicks had pipped or hatched so I took Blossom's eggs and discarded them. Since none of her chicks had made it and she was still broody and sitting on an empty nest I felt bad. I decided that I would try to find chicks for her to raise. Now since it was still June I thought there would be lots of chicks for sale nearby where I lived. This was not the case though, I called local co-ops, farm stores and searched online ads, yet no one had a chick or two for her to raise. I was ready to give up when I remembered something, I knew someone that always was hatching out chicks!
I quickly called my friend and learned she had a few that were around 6 days old. She said she could only give me one, and she was away but the person house sitting for her could help me. I had just left on a trip so I had to call on the only person available who was my father to pick up the chick.
He didn't know very much about chickens at the time, so putting Blossom and her soon to be chick in his care felt worrisome.
But I trusted him enough to grab the chick and get it safely to Blossom. The friend I was getting the chick from texted us some information, she said "grab the light coloured CHICKEN chick". We thought that text she sent was a bit odd but went along with it.
My father arrived at her house, grabbed the "CHICKEN chick" and placed it underneath Blossom.
She accepted the chick right away and my father was relieved. He sent me photos of Blossom and her new chick. As soon as I saw these photos I thought the chick looked a little odd. I had raised lots of chicks before and had never seen one that looked exactly like it. But I was just happy to have finally gotten Blossom her chick and dismissed its strange appearance. What a shock I was in for! I sent some cute photos of Blossom and her baby to my friend, thanking her for the chick and saying how happy Blossom was. My friend texted back saying "oh, that's not a chicken, that's a peachick!" I was so surprised, now it made sense why the chick looked so different! I felt so badly about taking the wrong chick, I mean Blossom and her peachick were already very bonded. I felt so troubled at the idea of separating them.
So we came to the agreement that Blossom would raise the peachick and when it was older we would return it to her rightful owner.
The peachick grew quickly, Blossom took such great care of her and they were inseparable. I learned that the peachick was a black shouldered female and that she would grow up to be cream/white with a rusty patch on her neck and black mottling.
Soon it was September and time for the return of the peachick to her owner. My younger sister had named the peachick Temporary (Tempy) in honour of how we would soon have to return her to our friend.
Tempy was growing on us though, and it was clear the bond between her and Blossom was still strong. It would be so sad to separate them, we had seen countless times how upset Tempy got when she was not with her mother. So we came to the conclusion we wanted to keep her, even though at the time none of my family had experience with peafowl. It was a difficult choice, would Tempy have a better life at our friend's house or with her adopted mother? I decided to take the risk and bought Tempy from our friend, sealing her and her mother's future together. Now Tempy's full name is Temperance instead of Temporary.
I know there maybe people probably think my decision was silly, after all she was my first peahen and I didn't know much about peafowl in general. But Tempy seems truly happy to this day and has grown into a beautiful, friendly peahen who brings me and my family a lot of joy.
I am so grateful my father took the wrong chick for Blossom, without Tempy I would have never realised my passion for peafowl.
Thank you all for reading my post about Tempy and Blossom, I hope you all enjoyed it! Here are a few photos of them.
One summer my Ameraucana hen named Blossom decided to go broody. This was my first time dealing with a broody hen of my own so it was definitely a learning experience. Blossom decided to go broody in one of the nesting boxes in the coop. Unfortunately I soon learned what a mean, crabby broody hen looks like.
Well, she wasn't mean to me but I cannot say the same thing for how she acted to my other hens. With her in the nesting box she decided that the surrounding nesting boxes were only meant for her and she would harass and chase away all the other hens. I came to the conclusion that she needed to be moved to her own small coop so my other hens could continue to lay eggs in peace.
She at that point was sitting on 6 eggs, only two of them were her own. I was a bit worried about moving her and her nest, as she was already over a week into sitting on them. But I moved her anyway, and disappointingly Blossom didn't take the change of scenery very well. She freaked out, broke two of her eggs and kept leaving her nest for long periods of time.
I was quite concerned about her reaction, after all this was my first time dealing with my own broody hen.
To make matters worse she stopped eating and drinking entirely, looking back at that with more experience I know this can be common with broody hens but for me I was quite anxious for her at the time.
Through all of the mishaps and worry I tried to remain optimistic, counting down the days until her chicks were due to start hatching. At this point she was only sitting on three eggs, after breaking two and me taking two infertile ones away.
The day of the long awaited hatching came with no signs of pips or chicks and I was uneasy.
But there was still a chance so I let her sit on them a bit longer and sure enough one started to pip!
But it wasn't a happy ending...
The chick was almost fully out of the shell when I found it dead. Blossom wasn't even on her nest at the time I found it.
I lost hope after a few days later, no more chicks had pipped or hatched so I took Blossom's eggs and discarded them. Since none of her chicks had made it and she was still broody and sitting on an empty nest I felt bad. I decided that I would try to find chicks for her to raise. Now since it was still June I thought there would be lots of chicks for sale nearby where I lived. This was not the case though, I called local co-ops, farm stores and searched online ads, yet no one had a chick or two for her to raise. I was ready to give up when I remembered something, I knew someone that always was hatching out chicks!
I quickly called my friend and learned she had a few that were around 6 days old. She said she could only give me one, and she was away but the person house sitting for her could help me. I had just left on a trip so I had to call on the only person available who was my father to pick up the chick.
He didn't know very much about chickens at the time, so putting Blossom and her soon to be chick in his care felt worrisome.
But I trusted him enough to grab the chick and get it safely to Blossom. The friend I was getting the chick from texted us some information, she said "grab the light coloured CHICKEN chick". We thought that text she sent was a bit odd but went along with it.
My father arrived at her house, grabbed the "CHICKEN chick" and placed it underneath Blossom.
She accepted the chick right away and my father was relieved. He sent me photos of Blossom and her new chick. As soon as I saw these photos I thought the chick looked a little odd. I had raised lots of chicks before and had never seen one that looked exactly like it. But I was just happy to have finally gotten Blossom her chick and dismissed its strange appearance. What a shock I was in for! I sent some cute photos of Blossom and her baby to my friend, thanking her for the chick and saying how happy Blossom was. My friend texted back saying "oh, that's not a chicken, that's a peachick!" I was so surprised, now it made sense why the chick looked so different! I felt so badly about taking the wrong chick, I mean Blossom and her peachick were already very bonded. I felt so troubled at the idea of separating them.
So we came to the agreement that Blossom would raise the peachick and when it was older we would return it to her rightful owner.
The peachick grew quickly, Blossom took such great care of her and they were inseparable. I learned that the peachick was a black shouldered female and that she would grow up to be cream/white with a rusty patch on her neck and black mottling.
Soon it was September and time for the return of the peachick to her owner. My younger sister had named the peachick Temporary (Tempy) in honour of how we would soon have to return her to our friend.
Tempy was growing on us though, and it was clear the bond between her and Blossom was still strong. It would be so sad to separate them, we had seen countless times how upset Tempy got when she was not with her mother. So we came to the conclusion we wanted to keep her, even though at the time none of my family had experience with peafowl. It was a difficult choice, would Tempy have a better life at our friend's house or with her adopted mother? I decided to take the risk and bought Tempy from our friend, sealing her and her mother's future together. Now Tempy's full name is Temperance instead of Temporary.
I know there maybe people probably think my decision was silly, after all she was my first peahen and I didn't know much about peafowl in general. But Tempy seems truly happy to this day and has grown into a beautiful, friendly peahen who brings me and my family a lot of joy.
I am so grateful my father took the wrong chick for Blossom, without Tempy I would have never realised my passion for peafowl.
Thank you all for reading my post about Tempy and Blossom, I hope you all enjoyed it! Here are a few photos of them.
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