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Terms like “chicken headed” easily come to mind…..

Chickens are not deep introspective creatures……

They would not be your first poultry choice to have on a debate team…..

They are always predictively and consistently simple…..

However…reliably…every Spring…some of the hens (but not all) become “broody”…..

*****(Definition of Broodiness)*****

They insist on sitting on eggs…anyone’s and everyone’s eggs…..

You can watch them carefully use their beak to roll an egg out from underneath a less broody nearby hen…..

…..and gently situate the stolen egg along with their other eggs…under its feathery drawers…..

And then the egg stealing hen will smuggly sit on her new stolen goods…and there she stays…..

Chicken hens can be very stubborn…when they decide they are going to start sitting on a nest of eggs…(whether it’s theirs or someone else’s)…..

This Spring…I decided to take advantage of their single mindedness…..

…..and I covertly rolled a few duck eggs under several of the broody chickens…..

Other than a couple of grumbly clucks…the duck egg deliveries were successful…..

…..and the chicken hens settled their fluffy butts around the new (overly sized) additions…..

…..and the biddies were none the wiser…..

I am fairly sure that chickens can’t count…and incubation timing is beyond them…..

So the difference between twenty-one and twenty-eight days is semi-lost on them…..

…..and the days ticked by…..

And finally…..

…..the assortment of eggs began hatching…..

Some were cute little chicks…and some were ungainly waddling ducklings…..

And the Mama Hens were fine with that…some more so than others…..

I thought it best to not wait and see which mothers were going to be loving and nurturing…or which ones were going to be murderous horrific parents…..

Throughout the day…I would routinely check the coop…..

I’d listen for new sounds…like peeping…pipping…or rustling…..

And I would unceremoniously lift up hens and check under them…this is usually met with a great deal of judgmental pecking from the involved poultry…(and maybe some giggling from their non-nesting peers)…..

I’ve taken to collecting the chicks and ducklings when I can…and putting them in our handy dandy RubberMaid bins on the porch…..

There they are kept warm with a heat lamp…and can sit on dry hay with their brothers and sisters…..

…..and not worry about a renegade hen attacking them for no reason at all…..

Hey…things happen on a farm…..

You have to expect the unexpected…..

…..and drop back and punt…..