On my last post I mentioned that we had some little surprises waiting for us upon our return from the beach and here they are...Yes! We had a second hatching while we were away!
We have two new black australorps and two who appear to be a black australorp and buff orpington mix. They are absolutely adorable! We think that we have at least one roo in the group (possibly two).
The hatchings happened while we were away and there was a little mix up which has made things even more interesting...We let our neighbor know that they were more than welcome to harvest our egss while we were away (as an additional thank you :). Turns out that two of the eggs they took hatched in their kitchen. Yes, you read that right! Imagine their surprise :). So...while two of the chicks were bing "mothered" by our broody, two were being kept under a heat lamp at the neighbor's (who thankfully is very knowledgable and equipped). When we tried to integrate the two back home with the broody, she (unfortunately) didn't accept them. So we have been keeping them indoors until they are big enough to venture out.
For those of you taking notes, this means that we now have three generations of chickens at the farm and things are getting...complicated. The three from our first hatching seem to have formed a little unit or sub flock. The broody and her two chicks are a third "sub flock" and then we have the two in the house. In addition, five of the birds from our hatchings are pure blackaustralorps (like Joe and the broody hens. As they mature,it will be more difficult to tell the generations apart so we must start tagging - at least with those.
I don't even want to talk about how we are going to have to deal with additional roosters. Let's save that for another post...
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