Hen Walks Out Of The Woods With Chicks…Again.

We have about 3 dozen free range chickens in our place in the woods. Two really good dogs watch over them during the day and keep any predators at bay. At dusk the chickens automatically go back inside their coops (which are shut at night), and the dogs are tied up outside around the coops. So I was pretty surprised to see a hen show up recently at the chicken coops with 8 baby chicks in tow. There haven’t been any broody hens that have been allowed to sit on eggs in the coop, which means that a hen has spent the better part of 3 weeks sitting on a clutch of eggs outside the protection of our dogs. Amazing…but not the first time this has happened here.

Mom, and her brood are setup in an enclosed nursery (seperated part of the large coop with their own chicken run) for several weeks before having free rein like the others. This allows us to feed the chicks special food to get them off to a good start among other things that their momma hen will teach them as they get big enough to fend for themselves.