This hen, who is a bit less than a year old, has just hatched out her second clutch of eggs! Her name is Ptera, short for pterodactyl. She’s vicious when it comes to protecting her chicklets! The first clutch was hatched in the nursery area of our coop – just like things are supposed to happen – back in April. Then at the end of May, Ptera disappeared. We thought for sure a predator had gotten her. But on June 20th, she made an appearance at the edge of the woods and our driveway with 10 little chicklets behind her! We gave them all food and water, and then tried to find her hiding place in the woods. We did eventually find it, and after dark, we went to “rescue” her and her hatchlings. I say rescue in quotes because I’m fairly certain they all would have survived (given Ptera’s beastly tendencies) but they would have all been feral forest chicks.
Here is a picture of Ptera and some of her chiklets in the brooding run. We won’t allow them to free-range for three or four weeks because we are hoping to get the chicks to think of the coop as home.
