Eggs Hatching Soon

We could have baby chicks by the weekend! You’ve all heard the saying “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch”. I’m not getting my hopes up but we have two hens sitting on nests. Do we need baby chicks? Definitely not! Every day, several times a day, I would remove the eggs from the nest but one mama hen would not take no for an answer. After several weeks of checking the nest four or five times a day, dealing with the mean mama trying to prevent me from removing eggs, I gave in. She began sitting on September 1 and it takes about 21 days for the eggs to hatch. As soon as I let the one hen keep eggs for sitting, another one parked herself in the next nesting box. I figured fair is fair! I let her sit too.

This afternoon a friend was over and I said “Come hear this mean hen!” One of the hens gets very vocal when I go near the coop. Since she began sitting, I have not seen her off the nest except once when she and the other hen briefly switched nests. My friend and I went out to the coop and the mean chicken was not on the nest but a nice hen was on there. I was able to move her off the nest for a minute and get a picture.

The golf balls are for the snakes. If they swallow the balls, well . . end of the snake.

There are 16 eggs in one nest and 8 in the other nest. Odds are that about half the eggs will hatch. Let’s hope they don’t all hatch!

When I went back out later in the afternoon, the mean chicken was back on the nest.

Does she look like she’s thinking . . stick your hand down here and you’ll lose it! Even though she’s a mean mama when she’s sitting on eggs, she’s about the best mama hen I have when it comes to raising babies.

When I told Vince we would have eggs hatching this weekend, he said “Great! More mouths to feed!” I don’t think he was excited that our chicken population could soon double.