4 and counting...

While the sheep feigned indifference, Snowball, the white Silkie pullet, came through her marathon broody spell with 4 chicks hatching today.  Poor thing started out brooding almost 5 weeks ago but every day when she left the chicken house to grab her once-a-day meal, another hen would add an egg to her nest.  Soon she had over a dozen eggs and she couldn't keep them all covered.  So we cleared those eggs out and gave her 6 fresh eggs and a house of her own on May 1.  May 2 we added one grey silkie egg from our new pair.

Around mid-morning today we spotted this little black-and-white Dominique chick poking his (her?) head out from under Snowball.  By noon there were three more chicks added to the brood: 2 Turkens and a chipmunk-looking one which is probably a green-egg layer.  (All the full-size eggs placed under Snowball were brown but in addition to Cappy, the Dominique rooster, we had Brownie, a green-egg layer rooster, in the pen from which the eggs came.)

One Turken is a yellow-white fluffball and the other is very similar in coloring to the chipmunk-looking chick except it has the trademark naked neck. Maybe it will be a green egg layer, too?

Snowball wouldn't come off the nest even to eat today so I'm thinking there might be one or more eggs she's waiting to hatch. Stay tuned.