Saturday, September 4, 2010

Lesson Learned

You might remember my broody mama, Mathilde, and her brood of chicks.  She has been living in the run with her chicks in order to protect her chicks from the motherly bathings of my dog, Jelly.  A couple of nights ago, it got to raining pretty steadily.  Mathilde and the chicks had shelter in the run, but they were still on the wet ground, and i wanted them to be able to get truly dry.  



Normally, i would put her in the brooder, but the brooder was full of these little guys.


But i thought i would give a try to combining them.  The babies in the brooder were only about a week and half younger than Mathilde's chicks.  So, i put Mathilde and her 3 chicks in the brooder with the babies, and i watched her to make sure everything would work out o.k.

Well, i nearly broke down into tears as Mathilde looked around at all these chicks, her bird brain obviously trying to figure out where she miscounted, and after some serious thought, walked over to the corner where all the babies were hiding from the giant monster chicken, and attempted to cover them.  It was beautiful.

I checked on them a couple more times before i went to bed, and when all seemed well, i didn't worry.  I thought i had a solution.

Next morning, i went out to check, and to my great dismay, all five of my black sexlinks had been plucked.  BALD.  Apparently, Mathilde was trying to clean all that "dirt" off of them or something.  I immediately ousted Mathilde and her chicks, and then sprayed the poor bald babies with blue kote.  Here's what they look like now.




Poor things.  Thankfully, none of them were truly hurt, just a little sore, and some rest and vitamins perked them right up.  



4 comments:

  1. Mathilde was trying to be a good momma, bless her heart. The mothering instincts of chickens amazes me and when you said she covered all 13 of them I could have cried. Great post--thank you for sharing!! Based on this post, I think you would enjoy my latest post on my hen named Sunny. It furthers the point of this mothering thing :) Thank you for sharing!!
    Amy-Verde Farm

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  2. You have a wonderful blog! So fun to read and VERY interesting. Check out our blog at thechickenkeepers.blogspot.com I am going to become a follower of your blog and add you to my blog roll.

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  3. Thanks for reading, TheChickenKeepers!
    I'll be watching your blog for new posts! Looks great!

    Beth

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  4. I put a few of the 3week old baby chicks in the big girl coop tonight.... we shall see what happens. I have the mama chicken in there with her FOUR and she is teaching them to come up to the big henhouse at night. This reminded me that now is the time.... SO I put up the cinder block hiding places and the cage for them to run to for protection and food and water. I am starting slow to see how it goes. I pray that all wil go peaceful and they will live harmoniously and that the mama chicken's chicks will teach the incubator chicks how to act like a chicken.. JOY

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