Chick photos

The chicks are doing fine.  They are a few days old now and are getting big.  We got 4 white leghorns, 3 silver laced wyandottes, and 3 red sex links.  They all are supposed to be pullets.  I would have taken more wyandottes, but the store didn't have anymore.  I really didn't want the leghorns, but Randy really wanted some leghorn hens.

The foster mama hen, Charlotte, is a great mother.  However, she was only broody for maybe 4 days at the most.  And now she still wants to sit.  She's not walking around with the chicks, she just wants to sit.  For the photos below I drug her out of a nest box & sat her out in the coop.  The chicks are active and run around her, she clucks to them and shows them what to eat, but she doesn't even stand up.

What amazes me most about the whole foster mother hen and store bought chick process is how well the babies adapted to the hen.  They had never seen a hen before, but as soon as we put them under her wings they cuddled and snuggled and loved her.  They listen to her clucks and want to stay close to her.  They climb all over her and snuggle up under her wings when they are tired.  I think they would have grown up fine without a mother hen, but they truly seem like happier chicks now that they have a mother hen.  I raised chicks without mother hens & with mother hens, and I will always choose to use a mother hen if I have one that's broody.  

Charlotte has raised several broods of chicks in the past, so we knew she'd do fine with chicks.  My only concern is that she wasn't broody, sitting on eggs, long enough.  Hopefully she doesn't sit like this for another 2 weeks, which would have been her normal broody cycle if she had eggs under her and they hatched after 3 weeks.