Last year I was doing a little tractor work for a friend and had to stop in my tracks several times for mother hens and their chicks. To the owner’s frustration, two free-range hens decided to sneak off and hatch out clutches of fluffy cuteness. It was a welcome intermission to a dusty job, and I found myself growing envious of their self-sufficiently reproductive chickens. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s chickens!
But I did covet them. Hatchery chicks are increasingly expensive. The timing of their availability tends more towards marketing convenience and other factors not always aligned with the challenging realities of small farms. Even if none of this is an issue, you still have to contend with the limitations of the U.S. Postal Service, which has become a less reliable mode of delivery for live birds over the last two years. I hinted, then asked, for one of these excellent broody hens, but it was no use. What was once the bane of hobby poultry keepers is now being remembered as a vital component of resilience.
Most conventional poultry producers have deselected the tendency to sit on eggs, especially in chickens, so it can be difficult to find strains that will do the work of hatching eggs the old fashioned way. Incubators come in two styles – the junk models and the Rolls Royces. One offers an enticing price point and about two seasons of frustrated use, the other attempts to bankrupt you with automation and quality. Naturally, we’ve got two of the former, both of which have returned mixed results.
One extraordinary alternative is the Muscovy duck, which will sit and sit and sit for the bulk of spring and summer. We had hoped to use this to our advantage this year by putting the eggs of other poultry types under these capable ducks, but it’s beginning to look like it will not be necessary. Both of our goose hens are laying well, and one has taken up the cause, sitting reliably on an ample volcanic nest of many goose eggs.
Warning! Do not provoke the ire of the “cobra chicken” sitting upon her volcano!
Then our Chickie Mama (Farley) reported this week that a French Black Copper Maran was sitting on eggs in the chickshaw. Woohoo! Two days later we moved the chickens to a new spot, close to where I am building a corral for our new sheep (woohoo again! They’re coming this weekend...) While fencing away I noticed a lot of grouchy chicken sounds coming from nearby and stopped to investigate. The Maran was grumble bock bocking at the chickshaw door. Then she was squawk grumble squawking around the yard. Both roosters got an earful of grumble bock squawk ba-gawk! Wondering why she was so angry, I lifted the lid to the chickshaw and discovered the conflict – another hen was sitting on the Maran’s pile! I reported back to Chickie Mama and she confirmed — the Speckled Sussex hen was broody, too.
From left to right: The shape-shifting Maran flattened out on her nest; the competition moves in; the Sussex steals the nest; a glarin’ Maran stomping around the yard.
We have already moved this year’s first batch of new hatchery hens, just six weeks old, onto pasture and have eight more, just one week old, in the brooder. Additionally, 41 eggs are five days from their hatch date in one of our non-Rolls Royce incubators, which may or may not prove fruitful. One Muscovy, recently graduated from ‘that duck’ to being called ‘Louise’ has been dutifully tending a secret nest of only-she-knows-how-many eggs for about a month. We are about to be up to our ears in feathered friends. Somebody is going to be a very busy Chickie Mama!