We thought the green coop was Out of Order. We genuinely did.
No one had been using it, so we decided to just leave it out of order for the season. The door was slightly ajar, but no one used it so we left it at that. It got grown up on the outside and grew sting weed on the inside in some areas. It's a HOT mess.
Today I was outside for the first time this week just exploring. Because regardless of what people think you do all day, a farm wife's job is never done. I kept hearing chirps, from everywhere! The martin gourds, the sparrows' nests in the pheasant pen, but it kept sounding like it was on the ground and right there at my level. I began searching for the chirps thinking maybe one of the birds had fallen from the nests.
I followed the chirps straight to the green coop...
I said, "Oh my gosh! Chicks!"
Their mama was up in the top of the coop still focusing on her other eggs, these babies all laid in the bottom of the pen chirping wanting back to their mama. But there was one problem. I couldn't get to them through the sting weed.
(Sting weed, I had never even heard of it until I moved to the farm, and it "bit" me for the first time. It feels like the biggest cow ant bit into you and left fire under your skin if it even brushes against you. No exaggeration. Water doesn't help so if you know of any remedies or the technical name, comment below!)
I took a waterer over to the pen and cut out a hole in the back where they kept going and slid the waterer in through the hole then assumed they would be good and find a way back up to mama.
I went back into the house and decided to rest.
As I'm sitting in my chair I begin hearing chirps again, but they're getting closer. I got up and walked to the door staring out over the yard. Perty sat on the porch steps with chicks running back and forth all the way around her. Quite impressive that she didn't even try to catch one!
I leaned down to these chicks and the poor things were so lost and scared that they actually ran to me. I couldn't put them back in the pen with mama because she was too focused on the other eggs with chicks who hadn't hatched. They'd be eaten or pecked to death before she got off that nest to protect them. (She's a first-time mom.)
(RANDOM FACT: A mama hen will NOT leave the nest until she has hatched the last chick. She can sense them inside the egg and will refuse to leave until each one has hatched or either passed away.)
So here are these five little chicks running aimlessly through the barnyard and the other older hens and roosters are all like:
And these little chicks are just running around through the others like:
I laughed at them for a good while and watched them steal food from the hens and the hens eye them to try to figure them out, then I decided it was time to intervene. I found a small box and placed them in until I could figure something out.
I decided to put them in our old hospital pen. It's perfect for chicks, a small closed-in coop with one level. As soon as they were put in they were content, stopped chirping loudly, and decided it was about time for a nap.
I can always tell when Winter is over because the days become story-worthy. Hope you enjoyed this small sliver of my life today.
Thanks for reading!
-Lady of the Farm
Comments