As you might remember, I’ve got a broody hen (Harriet) sitting on a clutch of “multi-ethnic eggs”…that is eggs from all sorts of different breeds of mother hens (okay, I don’t know if that term really works, but I’m using it).
Harriet is a dedicated little mama. Every time I open the chicken coop, I see her sitting here, content, on her clutch of 9 eggs. Waiting patiently for her family to hatch. She looks sweet and very motherly, somehow, as she patiently sits it out.
I feel badly for her sometimes (like today, when it feels like spring and it’s a good day to be outside and stretch your wings a little). Especially since it’s Harriet. She loves being outside, hunting for ‘wild worms’ and all sorts of insects (she is the one I saw catch a butterfly in mid-air). She’s always the first one out, the last one in. She loves roaming in the yard.
Now, however, she’s cooped up in the coop, keeping her (hopefully) soon to be hatched chicks warm. So, I bring her little treats. Bugs, small bites of apples or lettuce. A tiny bit of cracked corn or bird seed. (She is my favorite after all!)
But today, Harriet got up for a stretch! It must have been the warmer weather. I fed her little snacks and she stood up, stretched, and walked over to the food dish, ate a bit, then flew outside to join the other girls for a bit of recess.
She even took time out for a lovely dust bath in the chicken run…eyes closed, blissed out in contentment. She scratched at a few bugs, ate a worm on her way back up in the coop, to join her eggs.
Now, she’s all tucked back in, waiting. And waiting.
The eggs are due to hatch march 14 or 15. I’ll let you know next week how many hatched (if any)…it’ll be a bit of backyard barnyard excitement to be sure!
