My husband
and I have a backyard chicken flock of varying ages and now we have new
home-hatched chicks.
We tend to
add a few new chicks almost every year, partly because if we see a breed that
looks interesting we want it and partly because the egg production slows down
dramatically in hens after the age of two years. Many of the older chickens
have died off. The average life span of a chicken, assuming no predation, is
4-5 years. The last hen from our very first chicks, an Americauna named Flo,
died during the summer at the age of eight years. Since our chickens have a
guaranteed retirement here with us and we try hard to protect them from all the
creatures of land and air, our oldest hens are now seven-years-old and our
youngest turned a year old in May. Sixteen chickens, ten or so different
breeds, one of which is a rooster.
Last May we
got two Frizzle-Silkie cross chicks and two Welsummer chicks. One of the
Frizzles is a red rooster we named Ed Sheeran, after the singer with similar
hair (red with a comb-forward to cover your receding hairline). He’s a handsome
roo with his wild feathers that look like they were caught in a tornado.
 |
| Ed Sheeran, red Frizzle rooster |
Our other
Frizzle is named Rihanna, also after the singer. Our Rihanna, however, is
probably the ugliest chicken we’ve ever had. She is tiny, black, about one
pound, smaller than our other female Bantam (miniature) breed Silkie hen, Beaker.
Rihanna has been hen and rooster pecked so that she is missing a lot of her
curly feathers, her head and neck almost completely bald giving her the
appearance of a turkey vulture. Bantam hens are slower to mature, often not
starting to lay eggs until they are 8 months old. Rihanna didn’t start laying
until she was about a year old. I often said Rihanna was a sorry excuse for a
chicken; not attractive, very poor layer and skittish.
When Rihanna
became broody in August, I ignored it at first. Being half Silkie, her breed is
known for going broody, which means they will just sit on a nest for three
weeks or so, whether or not there are eggs under her. During the broody time, a
hen will not lay eggs, getting off the nest only a few times a day for short
periods to eat, drink and poop. This characteristic has been bred out of most
other breeds of chickens, but not the Silkie. Therefore, Silkie hens are infamous
for hatching and raising chicks the old fashioned way. We have used Beaker, our
white Silkie, a few times to hatch the eggs of others and raise chicks.
A couple of
weeks into her broodiness, Rihanna remained steadfast on her nest, and I
decided we should go for a few new chicks. With our only rooster being a
Frizzle, any chicks that hatched would have a fifty percent chance of having
the curly feathers of a Frizzle, yet the size and coloration of the mother. Rihanna
and her foster mother, Beaker, were moved into our old coop with six eggs; two
cream, one green, two chocolate brown and one with dark spots. I wanted Beaker
there for moral support and as a back-up in case Rihanna’s hormones suddenly
changed her broodiness mid-gestation. I hoped that Beaker would take over if
necessary. I put in more eggs than we actually wanted because our luck has only
hatched one live chick out of every four eggs any time we’ve tried to hatch
eggs in the past. Plus, with Ed being a smaller breed of rooster than the rest
of the flock, I didn’t know how many of the hens he’d successfully bred. Some
of the girls had no trouble out running Ed.
 |
| Biological Mom - Welsummer Hen - Either Dear Abby or Ann Landers (they're twins) |
On Day 21,
the first egg hatched! It was from one of the dark brown Welsummer eggs, either
Ann Landers’ or Dear Abby’s. The next day, another egg hatched! Also a
Welsummer. The other eggs either weren’t fertile or didn’t survive. So we have
two new chicks, and by the coloration, both appear to be little pullets (young
hens). One has the curly Frizzle feathers. Daughter Kelsey has named them
Charlotte and Cindy.
 |
| Grandma Beaker with Foster Mom, Rihanna, and chick |
Cute chicks,
being raised by a not-so-cute yet very attentive mother. It is fun to watch how
Rihanna scratches the dirt and clucks to her babies or how she lets them
snuggle under her if they are cold. Grandma Beaker seems to enjoy being around
to help out yet she doesn’t try to steal the chicks away from Rihanna. And so,
the miracle of life in the world of backyard chickens continues.
 |
| Rihanna with her brood |
