| Little Chick is now a Chicken |
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| Oh, yes. They did grow up. |
| We have nine hens and two |
| roosters. |
| In Autumn the hens lay |
| eggs and the roosters sing. |
| In Winter the chicken house |
| is at rest like all Nature. Hens |
| do not have enough natural |
| light for laying every day. |
| Did you know that a hen needs |
| translated from French by Elena Malec |
| 14 hours of day light in order |
| to lay everyday? |
| When days are short the hens |
| Springtime brings joy: |
| everybody is at work. |
| use to rest. |
| That is how one of our hens |
| seemed willing to hatch. So we |
| got all prepared to hatch our |
| chicks with her instead of the |
| incubator. |
| We know from Alexandra that |
| this is not like in the hatchery; |
| our job for 21 days will be |
| now done by the hen. |
| And we are not |
| supposed to disturb Mother |
| Hen while she is hatching. |
| Yet after 15 days we were |
| quite disappointed. Our hen |
| was disturbed by her sisters. |
| So, broken eggs and new eggs |
| laid by other hens all over the |
| place. In short, no hatchlings. |
| But Mother Hen seemed very |
| determined to have chicks and |
| she refused to leave the nest. |
| This is how we took her under |
| our protection and isolated |
| her from the other hens. |
| We've moved |
| her to a shed next to the house |
| where she had now her own |
| nesting box with fresh hay. |
| There we put 9 eggs laid by her |
| sisters |
| two days before her moving. |
| Happy Mother Hen was ready |
| to try all over again. |
| We were all set for another 21 |
| days if everything went fine. |
| Our hen had good reasons for |
| refusing to quit. After three |
| weeks, |
| on July 16, 1999, when we |
| came for our gardening class, |
| we had |
| the big surprise: she was |
| surrounded by 6 lovely day |
| -old chicks. |
| There were born that night; |
| it was very hot and they were |
| in a big |
| hurry to meet us. |
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