Brenda's Burn Pile Babies

BRENDA AND THE BURN PILE BABIES

Brenda is one of our hens that tends to create nests and raise families. Every night we lock up the hens so that they are safe from predators. If they are missing and we can't find them, its a serious problem and we have lost favorite hens this way.

One night Brenda didn't come back to the hen house, and it took us a day to find her. We followed her after she came in mid morning to eat and drink. We followed her back to this burn pile.

The pile was pretty big after not being able to burn after a whole summer of tree trimming. The pile was about 10 yards wide by 30 yards long. After we followed her we found that she was sitting on a nest with 8 eggs in it.



Temperatures were getting above 100 in late September out where Brenda was. We parked the truck right next to the nest and at night we left a light on with a low wattage bulb to keep the predators away. One morning we came out and found a few heads peeking out at us.

When everybody was out of their eggs we moved them all into the barn where we could shut the door and keep them safe. It was also cooler in the middle of the day when the Sun was strong.

Here is Brenda in the barn with her new brood.



One of the things that is very important with free ranging chickens is to keep them safe from hawks and other predators. For this reason Brenda and the babies stayed in the barn for a couple of weeks after they moved in from the burn pile.



Even now that they are older Brenda and all the babies still sleep together. Chickens always go to the same place to roost at dusk. Most of ours go to the hen house, and some to a hedge by the hen house and we have to take them inside. Brenda and her babies go to the stall in the barn where the babies were raised. One of the other hens had three chicks and she abandoned them at about two months of age and started going back to the hen house. Brenda might do that someday but she shows no signs of it yet.

Brenda is looking a little crowded here.

So keep an eye on this blog and we will make a few posts about Brenda and the Babies as they grow. Here's Brenda keeping an eye on things with one of the babies keeping an eye on her..