Adopted Mama

This Spring, we ordered in some baby chicks.  As you know, Wyatt was working on his Science Fair project for next year, where he ordered in 25 cornish cross broilers, a number of red broilers, and some Delawares. In order to round out the order for the minimums, we added 5 California Greys and 5 Black Australorp pullets.

The cornish cross chickens had to be kept separate from the others do to their growth rates and other issues.  The Delawares and the Red Broilers did fine with the others for the first few weeks, but then with the differences in growth rates and needs for space, they needed to be separated from the other two breeds.

The California Greys and the Black Australorps were the last to be ready to move outside, but still needed the protection of a full pen.  The bantam pen was plenty big enough, and the chickens very mild tempered, so we put the little pullets in there to let them grow out some more before moving them to the big pen with the older laying girls who can be a bit fussy.  The older White Faced Black Spanish hens took to the babies quickly, one deciding she was a surrogate mother.

A few weeks ago, we felt that the pullets were ready to move up to the big pen.  There is no roof on that pen, and they are free to roam as they with, though the hens generally sleep in the tree above their pen, or in their nesting boxes in their barn.  The night we moved them, the hen that had taken to acting as their mama hollered for over an hour while I was outside working with Wyatt and keeping an eye on them.  By morning feeding, they were lined up outside the bantam pen asking to go back in to their mama, now much smaller than they were.  They are doing better now, and a few have moved in to the big pen, but these photos are from last night.  The young ones are lined up on the North fence to the garden, as closed to their mama hen as they could be.  Funny, so many researchers believed for so long that animals didn't form lasting relationships!