The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Laying again

White Cochin eggsDespite their uncomfortable roosting arrangement, the mother hen and her chick are clearly midway through the weaning process.  Our youngest chicken is no longer glued to its mother's side, and instead opts to spend most of its time foraging with the cockerels.

With her first chick ready to fly the coop, Mama Hen has decided to move on.  Tuesday, I noticed her exploring the cockerel's coop, and Wednesday I found two eggs tucked in an out of the way corner.  I'm tempted to leave the eggs alone and see if our broody hen will successfully raise a larger clutch of chicks, but I'm not sure whether our cockerels are actually mature enough to be fathers.  Some of them are crowing, but the sounds are far from a real "cock-a-doodle-doo!"  What do you think?  Is a three month old rooster old enough to be a father?

Give your flock a homemade chicken waterer to play with and do away with feather pecking.


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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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Seems unlikely, but would be interesting to find out. Is she your only hen that goes broody?
Comment by brett Sat Jul 3 12:01:37 2010
Yup, she's the only one. I probably will leave her alone for now --- it's the course of least resistance, and we certainly don't have any shortage of eggs.
Comment by anna Sat Jul 3 12:34:16 2010





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