Friday, August 21, 2009

Happy place

With the loss of my father, my friend Dan wanted to cheer me up. He knew just the thing to give me a much needed smile. He built a pen for me in my Dad's barn and showed up with a surprise.The pen, but what or who is that inside?

Dan showed up with a large box... with Gracie and the chicks! I was so happy to hear that little cluck cluck, telling the kids "you are okay, mommy is here with you".
These pictures are about a month old, the chicks are actually larger now. The black chicks are half the size of their mother and Paris is taller than her mom since she is off of Marlene. Paris is I am afraid going to be a boy. If so I will call him Rico Rooster, it just sounds like a good rooster name to me. I had thought it was three girls and two boys but one of the other black chicks is showing signs of being a boy or a really bossy chick. In the picture above you can see one of the chicks is a lot smaller than the others, of course this one I baby. She was actually nearly killed by the other hens, that was the day they turned on the chicks for some strange reason.

Gracie is still a good mom, she cuddles all the chicks at night and finds food for them. However she is too good of a mother, she can't let them go. If you look back at the dates they were born you will realize the chicks are over three months old! I was hoping for a second batch but that will not happen now. Maybe because the bantam chicks were so small she never stopped brooding, she is slowly letting them go off on their own but calls them to her if they wonder away. I guess that is why they say Cochins make the best moms but I guess you would have to take the chicks away to get a second batch out of them, at least with Gracie anyway. I am trying to get them to sleep up on the perches at night, however if I don't go in after dark and place them there, Gracie will not lead them up. Paris really wants to sleep on the perches, at night she will walk over and try to get the others to come up with her, she will give up and lay down on the floor but I could tell she is not happy about that so I put them up after dark. I am also hoping this will help Gracie let go and start to lay again.

6 comments:

Tracey said...

Hey, how are you doing? What a lovely surprise to have the chicks brought to you! Hope you are feeling a bit better, nice to have you back....xxx

John Going Gently said...

nice to have you and the chicks back

Chicken Boys said...

Glad you have comfort in the little things. They are a lot of fun. :)

bubble said...

what a lovely suprise!

how are you??? great to see you back! Amy xxx

nobody-but-us-chickens said...

Tracey; thank you, with time I think things will return to as normal as they can be now.

John; thank you, I still will not be on that much as I stay mostly with my Mom for now until she decides to sell the farm.

Chicken Boys; The little guys are fun, actually they are the only animals left on the farm, not even a cat around!

Amy; I'm better, still sad inside but such is life, Dad would want us to move on, he would not want us to shut down, I just feel so bad for Mom now, they were together nearly 50 years and now she is alone.

Mario said...

thanks for your great post
I am completely in love with chickens . But I realize that marriage between man and chickens is considered weird, so I will just keep
raising them on my backyard :-)
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