Wednesday, March 31, 2010

poor confused little hen

This is Queen, Faith's chicken and she is confused. Why? Because she's sitting in the nesting box, (occasionally on some eggs even) hoping to become a mother hen. The confusion comes twofold; one being we don't have a rooster and two she's not been 'in a family way' to be able to become a mother hen. When I reach in to collect the eggs she proudly lifts herself up as if to say "see what a good job I'm doing" and genuinely looks sad when I take them away. Part of me actually feels guilty for doing that despite the fact I know they're not fertile, she apparently does not and thus the confusion. She must be thinking why would I do that to her? Don't get me wrong, if we still had a rooster I would absolutely encourage her to sit there and hatch them out. I would love for the kids to see that, especially since I had to explain what the rooster was doing to their girls last year. "Trying to become a daddy guys, that's all." I'm not ready for them to loose the rest of that most precious innocence yet. Too many have lost it far to early and it's a tragedy. Yes, I suppose I could get some hatching eggs and try that route, but then we'd have roosters again. Oh what a quandary!

4 comments:

  1. Poor chicken! What kind is she? She's pretty.

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  2. What about giving her a few fake eggs? We created a few wooden eggs to place in the nest boxes that the hens will occasionally sit on. ( Also helps remind them where to lay ). She is a beautiful hen!

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  3. If she sets on her eggs she will stop laying and they are just now starting to get back into production..... so it's not ideal. When we first got them and they started laying we used plastic Easter eggs because we couldn't find wooden ones.


    Faith is beaming about the comments about her hen.

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So what's the view from your world about that? I'd enjoy hearing it.