The last time we had Buff Orpington hens, we sold them because they went broody. Their problem was that they weren't very good moms and didn't always sit on the same eggs, making it hard for us to remember which eggs we could sell or eat.
Not long after we sold them, a friend gave us 2 more Buff Orpington hens. 13 months passed and no egg-sitting, so I thought maybe these girls just weren't the mommy type.
So we bought 12 new chicks at the end of March figuring none were going to be hatched here. Now, just as those chicks are big enough to graduate from the garage to an outside pen, the remaining Buff goes broody. (We lost the second one to an illness.)
As of yesterday, Buffy Hen is sitting on 8 eggs. Since we kinda don't need 8 more chickens at this point, I can only hope they don't all hatch. Last year there were about that many and only 2 hatched, both roosters, so I don't think the survival rate is very good, but only time will tell. 21 days to hatch a chick. I think we are about a week into this.
These 3 photos of the grown up chicks are from Saturday when we moved them from their crowded box in the garage to an outside pen. They were still checking out their new surroundings when I took these pics. In the large photo: the 2 girls up front are the blue eggers. Mixed breed, so never sure what they will look like. The one on the right looks like one of our older blue eggers, the one on the left looks like a mix of the other 2 breeds that we bought. The black and white ones are Barred Rocks, the others are Golden Laced Wyandottes. This little redhead has the pattern of the Barred Rocks, and the coloring of the golden girls.
Keeping an eye on the BR behind the water bottle in the top photo. Bigger than the rest and already has the chin wattles. Hope you're not a rooster! We welcome all chickens here at Lester's Flat, but we already have 2 roosters, and only the well behaved ones get to stay forever.
