A Wail of a Tale

My chicken count is now as follows:

9 hens
1 rooster
4 teens (at least one rooster and 1 hen, not sure about the other two)
and
2 baybays.

Yes, folks, the hen that went missing on the 9th turned up at dawn two weeks later in the back yard.  At first I thought that I had left one out all night, but I always count at least twice.  So I watched her and followed her back to a rogue nest that was VERY well hidden at the base of a tree in some bushes and brambles.  She had been out for TWO weeks with the foxes, owls, bobcats, yoders, bears and all and never got eaten.  Plus, she was sitting on 7 eggs.  Well, it was too far along to quit, but I couldn't leave her out anymore, so I stuck her eggs under another broody hen, emergency ordered ANOTHER brooder house/hutch (since my first is still inhabited by the teens) and waited.  The next day the hutch arrived and I tried to train her to this new nest.  She was having none of it and wouldn't sit on the eggs.  So, I stuck them under a third broody and tried to train the first surrogate.  She was willing but very peckish, so she got the eggs.

Well, I needed to check the progress.  One egg had a dead baybay, so I discarded that one, getting pecked the whole time.  Two days later she had a baybay.  I wanted to train it to the water so took it out, getting pecked the whole time, watered the baybay and went to put it back in and she pecked the baybay.   She was so out of there.  So I went to surrogate number two, which happens to be Minion.  She accepted the first baybay, hatched another and is now happily a mother to baybays she didn't work for, but cares for.  The rest of the eggs were duds so I buried them.

Now I have another broody hen in a rogue nest in the carport, but at least I know where it is and can drag her in at night.

What can I say.  Sit happens.

bak bak