The difference

Chicks, like all babies, grow up fast. These photos were taken four days ago, and already they look different.

They have tiny feathers growing out of the fuzz on their wings.


I could sit in the coop for hours (except that I can't because I must keep my own children alive) and watch the interaction between the hen and chicks. This is so different from brooding orphan chicks in a cardboard box with a heat lamp.

It fascinates me to no end.

They make the happiest little trilling sound when they are falling asleep underneath their mom. I never heard this noise from our other chicks.

Despite being totally new at this, Momma Hen has turned out to be a really great mom. The transition from sitting to mothering was just seamless.

I was worried that she wasn't eating enough, so I brought her a bowl full of pieces of moist bread. (I did this often while she was sitting on the eggs.) She tasted it, then she called the babies out from beneath her and gave them every last piece. They ate it too.


Our orphan chicks would run like crazy when they got a snack. It was a game of keep-away with absolutely no rules. But these chicks, when they get a snack, are so calm and just step aside to eat.

It's almost like they know mom will give them more.


Chickens scratch.

It's what they do.

All the time.

Momma Hen thinks she needs to teach her babies to scratch. This has been our one problem. She scratches their bedding into mountains that cover their feeder and waterer.

I take bedding out. She manages to do it again. I take more bedding out.

Those birds have almost no bedding left.

But they're all happy and healthy, and it gives me another excuse to check on them, so I think we're doing okay.