Meany is one of our bigger girls, and she goes broody pretty much every year, it seems. When a chicken goes broody, it means her chicken hormones switch her from egg laying to egg sitting. No clue why it happens, just one day you notice she never leaves the nest except once a day to eat and poop. Some chicken breeds are more likely to go broody than others, and Meany is one of our regulars. She's also seriously built for it.
We definitely don't need any more chickens, but I always feel bad not giving a broody chicken a few chicks after she's been sitting on eggs for a couple weeks. She has no idea they will never hatch, it seems almost cruel. You can usually break a chicken's brood just by removing her from the nest, but Meany is pretty persistent. A cool trick, though, is you just shove a few chicks under her bum, pull out the eggs, and she thinks her babies have magically hatched. Plus then the chicks don't need a heat lamp or any special care, so win win. Chickens are kinda dumb, but in this case, in a good way.
Another awesome thing about a broody hen over a heated brooder is we never have to check the chicks for pasty butt. Yes, it's really called that. When chicks are little, they aren't tall enough for their poop to fall away from their little chick butts, so it gets stuck on there. The dried poop blocks their new poops from coming out and if you don't clean it off, they can die. But when a hen raises the chicks, she checks them and cleans them herself. I cannot tell you how awesome it is to not have to clean a pasty butt off a baby chick. That stuff is like cement, and the chicks are not exactly appreciative of the assist.
Anyhow, Meany is a very good mommy. Mother hens have a special cluck they use to tell their babies to follow their lead. Here she's showing them how to scratch for food. Chicks instinctively do this even without a mommy to show them, but it's still pretty cute.
There now, you know a bunch of things about chickens. Who knew you were such a nerd.
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