Chick-Palooza

We are now past the summer solstice and the days will be getting shorter. So far the weather here in Michigan has been cool–with temperatures dipping into the 40s at night and mornings quite chilly. However, the temperatures are warming up. The National Weather Service says that by Tuesday the highs will be in the mid-90s. Ugh. Southerners on social media often share memes that say things like “Say what you want…but no one retires up north.” We always comment, “We did!” I actually prefer the north’s cooler weather. The south’s high heat is unbearable to me.

EJ is now officially retired. As I wrote recently, June has been a very transitional month for us as we move from a weekly paycheck to twice monthly Social Security benefits. (I “retired” a couple years ago. Our benefits are paid on different days, about two weeks apart.) We’ve had to change our bill paying schedules, our shopping habits, and we revised our menus to get out of the rut we were in. But I’m sure we will soon get adjusted to the new rhythm.

I enjoy having EJ home full-time–and he enjoys being home. We are best friends and enjoy each other’s company. EJ has been getting a number of projects done that he struggled to find time for when he worked full-time. He’s also able to stop when his back starts hurting too much or he doesn’t feel well.

We’ve always wanted our hens to hatch their own eggs rather than having to buy chicks from the farm store. However, even though we’ve have hens who are supposed to go broody, we’ve rarely had any broody hens. Until this year.

We have several nesting places in the coop for the hens to lay eggs in, but their favorite nesting boxes are three kitty litter boxes. This Spring we had three hens go broody and for some reason they all squeezed into one litter box. They hatched six chicks. Their mothers were New Hampshire/Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orphingons, and Patridge Chantecleurs. Their father is Richard the VI. It’s quite clear which hens were the mothers because of their unique coloring. The chicks are now mostly grown.

Chick Video

The hens all lay their eggs in the same nesting areas; the mothers are the ones that sit on the eggsthen take care of the chicks after they’ve hatched. I keep the hens/chicks in an enclosed pen until the chicks aren’t so small and vulnerable. Once I let them all out, the chicks looked to one of the hens as “Mama.” It was fun watching them follow her around and sleep under her at night. There came a point where Mama obviously decided that they were old enough to fend for themselves and she stopped sleeping with them at night. The chicks still mostly huddled together at night, although I’ve seen some occasionally roosting with the adults. Our babies are growing up.

I thought three broody hens and six chicks would be enough for the year, but a few weeks ago five more hens went broody. One of the hens is a Buff Orpington but all the rest (including the first three hens) are Chanteceurs.The five broody hens have squeezed into the three litter boxes. We’ve found that newborn chicks have trouble getting out the litter boxes to get food and water and we’ve had a couple die so when the eggs start hatching we moved the hens, chicks, and unhatched eggs out of the boxes and inside a smaller fancy coop (our first coop that we bought from a farm store) and an old wooden dog house that the previous owners of our house left behind, both of which are inside the 10×12 shed that is THE COOP. We move them all as quickly and carefully as we can to disturb them as little as possible.

I was surprised at the number of eggs the five hens were sitting on. We didn’t take time to count them but it could be as high as 40. Not all the eggs will hatch, but we could still end up with an over-abundance of chicks. Yikes. I’m not sure how we will handle this over-abundance, especially if the new chicks grow up to be as fertile as the Chantecleurs. We might need to sell some chicks or sell the avalanche of eggs they will produce.

When I moved the chicken families, one of the five hens sort of freaked out. She wanted back n the litter box. So I added her eggs to two of the other hens and figured she’d get un-broody soon enough. But (I haven’t told EJ yet), she’s back in the litter box and might be laying more eggs to hatch? Yikes.

Since the litter boxes are the hens favorite nesting boxes, I looked on FB Marketplace and found someone selling four kitty litter boxes. I contacted the seller and told her we’d take all of them. Since it might seem strange that one couple would take multiple litter boxes, when we picked them up I told the woman that we use them for nesting boxes. She said, “Oh! That makes sense!” LOL. Her yard was filled with beautiful flowers. She gave us a tour and then gave us one of the plants.

Because the litter boxes are difficult for the newly hatched chicks to get out of, EJ cut the fronts lower so there’s only a small edge that they should be able to easily get out of to reach food and water. But that will be for another time, another hatching. Hopefully “another hatching” will not be soon.