Fifi rocks! Or, how to hatch eggs in the worst winter weather.

Late last spring we bought a bantam silkie pair and dubbed them Fifi and Mr. Fluff. Fifi almost immediately began to lay and went broody. In early June she hatched one bantam silkie pullet, Peep, two DominiqueX pullets, Brayer and Ares, and one AmeraucanaX cockerel, Squirrel. (We added fertile eggs to her clutch from the chickens in the portable electric netting as Mr. Fluff doesn't seem up to the task of covering the full-size backyard girls.)

After weaning* the first batch, Fifi went on to set another clutch resulting in two more DominiqueX pullets, Checkers and Chess, and one AmeraucanaX pullet, Bronwyn, hatching out in mid-September. Those are just now beginning to lay. Every day or two we find another mid-size egg (between Peep's bantam-size egg and the regular backyard girls eggs) in the nest box.

In mid-January, Fifi became broody again. She began gathering eggs, mainly hers and Peep's, around her and seemed prepared to set another batch. My mom was rather disappointed that we were unwilling to allow Fifi to keep her own eggs for hatching but as we can only house so many chickens around here, we wanted to increase the chance that any hatching chicks would be able to stay "at home" and not have to be sold as would be likely should we hatch more bantams. Thus DH gathered eggs from the electric net chickens and subbed them for Fifi's stash.

He was concerned that the eggs he placed this time, tho fertile, wouldn't have much chance of hatching, tho, as only one was still warm when he gathered it. The temps that week were hitting 0F. at night and seldom rising above 20F during the day. We had at least one egg freeze in the nest box before it could be collected. Didn't seem like the best time to be hatching but try telling that to a broody hen!

Fifi did her job as usual, however, and on Wednesday of this week DH spotted a little yellow head popping out from under her wing to see what was going on when he gathered eggs. It wasn't until Friday that we knew for sure she had two chicks. (DS is holding Fifi and DH has the two chicks in the photo.)

She'd started out with four eggs but late last week I found one egg pushed out of her nest, a foot or more away from her. It was cold and she made no demur when I picked it up. I wasn't positive it even had been under her until I checked it's contents and found what to me appeared to be a perfectly formed chick. Since she didn't object to my taking the egg I have to think she'd discarded it for some reason but don't know that for sure or why she would. And Wednesday, when DH spotted the first chick, he also found a still damp but out-of-the egg chick that was no longer living. Again, we don't know what happened to it tho we'd found one in the same condition from her second hatching, too. Nature can be hard sometimes but I wish I knew if it was something I could prevent in the future.

For now, Fifi and her two chicks are doing fine and we moved them into their own pen this morning so they can go in and out without worry of stray cats or other wildlife which can get into the backyard even tho it is fenced. Plus the other hens won't bother them nor eat all their feed as they're wont to do.

Our recent snow is melting as temps are expected to hit 55F. or even 60F. by tomorrow. If nighttime temps drop back to the teens, we can put a heat lamp in Fifi's house but when I looked out a few minutes ago she had already led the little chicks outside for a browse in the sunlit grass. Since this is her third time in the chick pen, I think she's comfortable with it and will go on to raise another fine brood of chicks. I'm just hoping they're both pullets...

*What is the correct term for when the mama hen begins to ignore her rapidly growing chicks?

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." -- Isaac Asimov

Fifi, the white Silkie hen, went missing this week. All we've found are clumps of fluffy white feathers in a long trail leading away from her favorite egg-laying spot towards the fence. She had taken to laying her eggs near the old apple tree in a little leafy spot she created just for that purpose instead of in the chicken house. It was off to one corner of our field-fenced backyard, away from where the other backyard girls and chicks typically hang out.

Our neighbor's farm pond hosts a fox den. He can watch the kits play there every spring. We've heard the local band of coyotes howl on the other side of the field behind us -- maybe 1/2 mile away. DH surprised what he thinks was a speedy coyote in the fenced backyard late one evening. Andy, the guardian llama, makes sure the sheep are up near the open barn when it's time to turn in at night. He positions the sheep between the barn and himself so he's always on guard. DS and I found a young skunk in the chick pen and, on another occasion, a full-sized skunk inside the electric poultry netting when we went out to close the houses up earlier this summer. We had a feral orange cat this summer who tried to catch the small chicks on occasion. There are predators all around us.

But secretly I've always believed they wouldn't kill any of our animals. You know, I suffered from a variation of the NIMBY or not-in-my-backyard syndrome even though earlier this summer, Petrock Trelawney's hatchmate, a little cockerel who wasn't around long enough even to secure a name such as Stewpot or Potpie went missing, too. We never found feathers or any sign of what happened to him but he and Petrock (photo on left) had developed the bad habit of hanging back instead of going straight into the house at night. DS and I would have to shoo the two of them in, sometimes resorting to waiting till they had settled into a bush or low-hanging tree branch then plucking them off their perch and stuffing them in the house. One night we couldn't find the cockerel. Either he was well-hidden (to us, at least) or he'd already been nabbed. Whichever way, he was still missing come morning so we concluded he had been devoured by some hungry animal.

Fifi will be much missed. She was the best mama hen we've had. Regularly setting on a hatch even in the coldest weather. Always shepherded her fledglings with the stereotypical "mother hen" approach. She stood up to the "big girls" and kept them from bothering her chicks. Even taking on Turkey, the naked neck hen and backyard leader, for their sake. Fifi's sometimes feisty attitude towards other chickens, her blue bill and earlobes (typical of Silkies) and her general cocky yet friendly stance towards us, her people, made her stand out amongst the other backyard girls.

At not quite 6 months old, her daughter, Snowball, hasn't yet shown any indication of broodiness or the strong personality Fifi exhibited but I hope she grows to fill the space her mother left not only in our hatching scheme but in my heart. I miss Fifi. We all do.

Chicken update

Here's a picture taken September 1 of Fifi's latest brood of 4 chicks which hatched August 11. Mr. Fluff and Valentine, a pullet Fifi managed to hatch in 0°F. weather this past February, are also featured. At least one of the chicks, the silvery one, is a cockerel but we're hopeful the other three are pullets.

This photo was taken this morning and shows the chicks out-growing Fifi. She still takes them under her wing (literally!) and shelters them from the rain, tho. And when we had a hawk scare on Tuesday, she sounded the alarm and the chicks stayed put, hunkered under the sweet annie and peonies around the deck, until the still-hungry hawk left the area.

Fifi and family live in the backyard rather than in the portable electric netting we use for the 2 full-size roosters and their hens. She shares the small backyard coop with another of her hatchlings, a green egg layer now almost a year old, known as Bronwyn. Bronwyn is well-known to our closest neighbor as she enjoys going on walk-about regularly. Every time we spot her out of the fenced backyard, she quickly heads home without any fuss on our part but she's determined to check out the surrounding green space at least a couple of times each week.

Dolly and Turkey are two more of the backyard girls. Turkey is an extra-large Turken who sees herself as a pet instead of a laying hen. Oh, she comes up with an egg regularly but apparently believes her main purpose in life is to set on one's knee and be petted and fed tidbits. Sort of like Holly-dog with feathers. Dolly makes a very distinctive coo-ing sound and sometimes finds herself being trailed by Mr. Fluff. He usually leaves the larger hens alone but has decided Dolly's the hen for him.

Surprise! Look what Bandit hatched.

Yes, it's a chick but it's still a big surprise.  We only noticed Bandit was broody last week.  Bandit is a backyard girl, a 9-mo pullet who was herself hatched by Fifi late last summer.

Apparently she was stealthily broody long before last week.  (It takes 23 days to hatch a chicken egg.) And she's an egg thief, to boot.

Unless we swap out the backyard girls' eggs with some likely-to-be-fertile eggs from the hens in the mobile coop, their eggs won't hatch.  Well, except for Mrs. Badger's eggs.  She's a little grey Silkie we added to the backyard on April 30 along with her mate, Badger,  He halfheartedly tries to cover one or two of the fullsize backyard girls but let's just say he hasn't gotten the hang of it yet.  So Bandit must have swiped one of Mrs. Badger's eggs and added it to her nest.

So what Bandit hatched is a little grey Silkie.  What a turnaround.  In one chick pen we have Bandit, a full-size hen, with her suspected bantam chick.  And next door, in another chick pen, is Snowball, a little white Silkie, and her now-2-and-a-half-week-old chicks who will grow up to be full-size chickens.  (Looking like 2 cockerels and 2 Turken pullets but time will tell.) 

And we can't forget Echa, the 3yo Turken and first-time mother in the mobile pen, who decided it's never too late to try hatching an egg. She sat on four eggs in one of the raised nest boxes in the wheeled coop but only one egg hatched. Mama hen and chick are doing fine in the third chick pen we set up, this time inside the electric netting. 

DS is ecstatic that we have Turken chicks. He's hoped for that ever since we got the three original Turkens (Turkey, Echa and Misha) as part of a day-old chick order. DH is very pleased that "his girl, Echa" came through with a chick after several weeks of impatient waiting. And I'm trying to figure out how we can set up another two chick pens because Mrs. Badger, the grey Silkie in the backyard, and Amelia Earhart, one of the new Turkens added to the mobile pen April 30, are both determined to brood their eggs. When it rains it pours.