Just Because

As I was going through pictures of our chickens, I found the two shots below, and I couldn't resist. :)

Another chicken story: The Four Stages of Broody Breaker Grief

My last chicken story was about Red, the first chick we hatched at our farm.  This story is about Red's Nest Momma, Kate.

Kate, was a chicken that went broody so often, it became a standing joke at our little farm.  She was absolutely determined to fluff up her pretty little bottom and sit on a nest - it didn't matter if the nest had eggs, golf balls, or absolutely nothing.  

Puffed up and protective - broody, not moody!

The first time she went broody, it was 'cute' - she was the first hen we had go broody, and the idea of hatching chicks seemed like a fun, pastoral, hobby farm sort of thing to do.   We let her sit on her small clutch of 6 eggs, which became 4 eggs about a week later when she moved them from one nest box to another.  Some people claim chickens don't do this, but I promise some do!  They tuck the eggs under their wings, and then move with them.  Obviously, it doesn't always work well, because 2 of her eggs fell out and rolled far enough away that she couldn't get them back into the nest box before they got chilled.  She successfully moved the other four, but only one hatched - Red.

We removed Red from her care when she started pecking him excessively, and when it was clear he needed food and water and she wasn't leaving the nest anytime soon.  We allowed her to sit on the other three eggs a few more days, thinking her instincts would tell her the eggs weren't going to hatch, and it was time to get back to pecking and scratching with the other chickens.  No such luck.  We removed the eggs from the nest, but she still didn't budge.  She was content to pass the time fluffed up in an empty nest. 

Looking for answers, we turned to the Internet, and found just what we needed on the Chicken Chick's website:  http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/05/broody-breaker-when-hens-mood-to-hatch.html.  The Broody Breaker was the answer!  Many chicken owners do something similar, but in a nutshell, you remove the chicken to a place that's cool, but not cold and drafty (you don't want a sick chicken).  You put the hen in a cage or kennel that allows open airflow, especially under her, and you leave nothing in the cage that can be used as nesting material or a nest. 

For our Broody Breaker, we picked a dog crate with holes drilled through the bottom of the plastic floor to allow better airflow.  We put it on blocks next to the chicken coop, so the other chickens wouldn't forget Kate, (it can happen with chickens) and so it would be easier to reintegrate her into the flock.

The reaction I got from Kate was surprising.  Chickens are not an animal many people associate with emotion, but she seemed to go through several emotions rather rapidly.  I got pictures of most of her expressions, and when I looked at them all together, the first thing that came to mind was the 5 stages of grief.  I only captured four, so here for your viewing pleasure are...  
 

The Four Stages of Broody Breaker Grief

These pictures were taken within the first 10 minutes Kate was in the Broody Breaker for the first time.  The light is a     little bright on the first picture, but she's still fluffed up, just like she's sitting on a nest instead of nothing but plastic.

It took awhile to get Kate to cool down - literally.  Broody hens have a higher body temperature than hens that aren't broody.  After a little over a week, she was ready to rejoin chicken society. The Broody Breaker worked great, and has been used successfully many times since then.  Thank you, Chicken Chick for your helpful advice!

Greenhorn Tips (i.e. things that should be obvious, but sometimes aren't):
When creating your Broody Breaker, not only should you leave nothing in the cage that can be used as nesting material, but you need to be careful about the types of food and water dishes you put in the cage.  Dishes/containers that can attach to the side of the cage instead of sitting on the bottom of it are best.  We used a regular bowl as a food dish once, and found the chicken tried to nest in the bowl! 

The Little Red ... Hen?

Back in the Spring, our overly-broody Wyandotte, Kate started to sit on a small clutch of eggs.  After weeks of sitting, she only hatched a single chick.  Since Kate was a Silver-laced Wyandotte and Dad was a Speckled Sussex, we were fairly certain the chick was a girl (see notes on sex-linked chicks in Greenhorn Tips at the end of this post).  We planned to let Kate raise  the chick in the traditional way, until she started pecking the baby's head ... a lot, much more than the normal 'get under my wing' momma hen pecking.  

Red with Momma Kate (before Kate went crazy)

We removed the chick, brought her into the house, and made a brooder box. Although it wasn't terribly original, we started calling the chick 'Red.'  Red loved to be held and cuddled, and she bonded to all of us to the point she cried whenever she couldn’t see someone nearby.  We gave her a stuffed chicken to sleep with at night, but we knew that wasn’t enough; it was important to socialize her with real chickens.   

Totally adorable, but kind of sad.

Putting her in with the adults was out of the question, so we immediately went looking for some chicks we could buy locally.  We found a breeder that was selling Black Copper Marans that were the same age as Red, so we bought ten chicks and tried to integrate her.  It didn’t work.  At first, they just ignored her, then after a few attempts by Red to nestle into the group - we were hopeful for a few brief minutes - she started aggressively pecking at the other chicks, almost taking out an eye on one of them.  Several of them returned the favor, pecking back, and eventually it got bad enough we had to put her back by herself (unless you count the stuffed chicken as company).  

Socially awkward ... it's not just something people experience.

I know that some people would consider culling a chick for overly aggressive behavior to other birds, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it.  We all cared about her, she was the very first chick we hatched, she was healthy, and although she didn’t like other chickens, she was very sweet with people.  However, between our adult chickens and all our new chicks, we knew if she couldn’t socialize, we wouldn’t have the housing or space in the long run for a loner chicken like her.

I reached out to my sister Stacy and her husband, Doug, asking if they wanted a pet chicken.  I let them know it would likely be a chicken that wouldn’t ever do well with other chickens (in all the research I'd done to that point, I'd learned chicks who weren’t well-socialized often didn’t do much better as adults).  They agreed to give it a try.  They set up a brooder in their bathroom, while they made plans for a chicken run they could put her in when she had feathered out.  

Red at our 2-week visit to Stacy and Doug's

We were happy Red was with people who would care for her the way we did, and we enjoyed going over for visits to see how she was doing.  The big surprise for all of us came when she was about 4 weeks old.  Her legs, which were becoming noticeably longer, started to develop spurs.  Our Little Red Hen was actually a rooster! 

Apparently, Momma Kate, had hatched out another hen’s egg; a common occurrence since chickens are communal nesters.  What we thought was a red-sex link pullet was actually a New Hampshire Red/Speckled Sussex cockerel.   If the spurs didn't seal the deal, the humorous attempts to crow a week or two later did.

Under Stacy and Doug’s care these past six months, Red has grown into a beautiful rooster.  My sister and I had heard of cases where a poorly socialized cockerel did well with a few hens after he was a little more mature, so when Red was a few months old, Stacy and Doug decided to try and re-social him.  They got him a few Speckled Sussex hens to care for, hoping that his natural rooster instincts would kick in, and fortunately, they did.  The once socially awkward chick became a genuine ladies man.  He takes excellent care of his girls, and is the kind of rooster that every chicken owner would love to have in their flock.

Still getting all his rooster bulk and his tail feathers, but a handsome boy for sure!

Red and his ladies

The happy ending to the story doesn't stop there - Red was also the humble start of Stacy and Doug's chicken adventures.  They now have over 20 chickens:  Ameraucanas, Marans, a Black Australorp, a Buff Orpington and several Brahmas.  They even plan to breed a few of the rare Brahmas they’ve acquired in the last several months.  Who would ever have guessed what a little red rooster could start?

Greenhorn Tips (i.e. things that should be obvious, but sometimes aren't): 

• 'Sex-linked' refers to breeding two specific types of chickens to create chicks that have color variations between the males and females, so you can easily tell them apart at hatching.  Many chicken breeds are difficult to sex until the young chickens crow or lay eggs.  Red sex-link chicks are all red female chicks and all white male.  For a great explanation of sex-link chickens, complete with pictures and charts, check out this thread:  http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/261208/sex-linked-information. 
• When bringing chicks hatched from different hens/incubators together, put a tiny dab of vanilla on each chick (a Q-tip works well for this).  When they all smell the same, the chicks are less likely to peck at each other.  This is something I unfortunately learned after the problems we had with Red and the Marans, but it worked great when we combined two different hatchings of Marans.