Trusting in Love and Friendship for Healing

It has been a tough year around our farm. The vet knows us well- ugh, and as fun and rewarding as county fair was, the intense workload left us exhausted. When we left for the fair, we already 15 baby chickens, six even went along with their Mama as a display during 4H week.

When we returned from fair, Grandma was still with us, looking after auntie’s doctor appointments, and Daddy left town the day after we went home. When the children, Grandma and I came home from town on Monday afternoon, we began unloading the car and dividing the chores. As I unloaded my arms inside, Wyatt came running to me to say, “Mama, didn’t you notice?”

As any Mama living in a state of perpetual exhaustion knows- nope, I had no clue what I had missed on my way in the door. Wyatt led me back out to a Mama with several babies sitting at the base of the Ocotillo just off the front porch steps. We all marveled at yet another bunch of babies, as my mind tallied that the baby count was now into the twenties. Wyatt set about food and water, and egg collection for the evening, as Bailey headed out to the goaties and I unloaded the car.

I wandered out to do the walk around, and noticed a couple of the babies had been separated from the Mama, falling into a tire. By the time I found the other Mama who had gone to fair, I had collected four babies. Over the course of the next hour, we continually gave the babies back to their Mama. We even tried to readjust two with the Mama from fair, who had taken over a different baby who had been abandoned. These new babies must have been too little to keep up, this hadn’t worked either.

Wyatt then set about to find the Mama again, who had hatched her babies in a nest situated under the smallest step to the front porch. He crawled under the deck, and found more lost babies. After another hour, we realized it wasn’t working. Wyatt left the two remaining eggs to the Mama, and we gathered the other babies in a trough with bedding and grabbed the warming lights and headed for the house.

The following day (Tuesday), the remaining babies would hatch. They, too, seemed to be too much for the Mama and joined the babies in the house. Boy was Daddy going to be happy to have them greet him after the TDY!

Fast forward a couple weeks. Saturday afternoon, some new babies were discovered who had hatched in a corner behind the doe barn. When Bailey found them, two were hung up. She called in Wyatt, as the hens don’t tolerate anyone else touching their babies. I was in the house working as the injured babies came in, shivering and scared. I found a notebook to section off an end of the trough. Between hand holding and feeding, they seemed to perk up, but whenever we put them down, one seemed to hide in a corner and only sleep. The other would cuddle it, then shove aside and sneak around the divider to the larger poults on the other side.

I was so worried the little ones would get hurt. I kept separating them, the older babies are already escaping their trough, sleeping on the edge, and running between bouts of stretching their young wings. But the one Wyatt called Doyle wanted to play, and the little one seemed lonely. And then the older chicks began to pile up on their side of the divider, beak to beak with the struggling chick.

Finally, I gave up and removed the divider while I was working on dinner. I was there, and could stop things if I needed to. Little Doyle got up and ran to her new friends. And the smaller one perked up.

Then an older chick spread her wings, and gathered the two new hatchlings with her to eat, then take a nap near the lights. She and a friend kept looking after the tiny ones. As evening drew on, the weak one began to run and hop like Doyle. Wyatt sat and held each of the babies in turn, with the two tiny one and their friend together.

I took a chance and let them stay together over night.

This morning, more of the older ones had snuck out, were playing under the trough. Remington took me to gather them before demanding breakfast, pointing them out and giving me that “Good grief, Mama” look, before gathering the other dogs to meet by their bowls. The tiny babies were holding their own- both of them.

I hadn’t been too sure about any of it, but I did trust the instincts of the older chicks- and it was right. They love one another like little siblings, the siblings they are. The friends they are. Score one for letting trust and love lead the way.