One in the Nest

  This is one of our golden hens. I think she is half Barred Plymouth Rock and I know she is at least half Buff Orpington. Last year we got an incubator and hatched two batches at the beginning of the year. She was one of the ones in the second group.
 She is now very broody. Broody means she has stopped laying, is not eating or drinking as much, and is spending most of her time sitting in a nest.

  Her name is Mohawk. I called her that because she hatched with a black stripe running down the middle of her head and down her neck. (I'm not good at names, but that doesn't stop me from trying.) She still has little dots of black on her neck feathers and the tip of her tail, but the mohawk is gone. She has really grown into the name. She wing danced the rooster when we brought him in. (Wing dancing is where a chicken sidles around something with one wing down, hitting that wing with their toe nails, making a scraping sound. It's a dominance thing. Usually it's a rooster doing it to his hens.) If you hear a loud scream from South-East Texas that's me. I got too close. And now I'm blind.

    She gave us a scare yesterday when she left the nest for about an hour. Over the years we've had hens change their minds about motherhood part of the way though. Sometimes another will take over and bring the eggs to term, sometimes not. There had been a hen that had been taking over for her, but she seems to have changed her mind about the whole thing. So if Mohawk hadn't gotten back on when she did I would have had to set the incubator up.

   When she is off the nest she is usually fluffed up and clucking to imaginary chicks. I have never seen a chicken behave like this. She might have fallen on her head, but I wouldn't say that where she could hear me. She is very irritable now. Sometimes she will attack the other chickens and the rooster. Maybe they said 'What are you talking about? I don't see any chicks.' or maybe they just looked at her the wrong way. I don't really know.

  She has eight eggs under her. It'll be so great if they hatch. I will keep you updated.

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