These banty hens don’t know when to quit. They don’t consult the calendar — or the farmer — and they just don’t recognize that it’s the wrong season for bringing more babies into the world. They keep nesting. They keep hatching out chicks, leading them through the leaves, teaching them to scratch in the dirt for seeds and other tasty snacks.
Take this young banty hen. As soon as the sun comes up, she leads her four chicks into the barn lot. The chicks are tiny bundles of energy — really tiny, kind of like earth-toned cottonballs with legs.
Those legs are fast though. And strong, relatively. They step, scratch, run, hop, and leap over crackling, dangerous leaves. Most of those fallen leaves are bigger than the chicks. A chick could get hurt falling over one.
After a while, those little legs get tired.
Mama hen picks out a place in the sunshine, and the chicks head for their warm spot under mama’s feathers.
Dive! Dive! Dive into the feathers! Quick or the good spots will be taken!
They’re all in except the daydreamer. It’s still staring around, enjoying the sunshine, listening to the birds sing.
Hey! Wait for me!
Ah . . . safe and warm beneath mama’s bosom.
Um, do chickens have bosoms?
Omigosh! Love this post! Soooooooooo adorable. Now I want little chicks…. Can you call my Hunk and tell him to add them to my Christmas list?
so cute!
Thanks for sharing……..
Dangerous leaves!
So these late season chicks, will they survive the winter?
Pablo – One of the chicks didn’t make it through its first week, but the others are doing well. Barring the usual gamut of accidents, these chicks should be make it through winter just fine. We’ve had quite a few clutches of chicks raised through winter’s worst. They have access to the barn, and I put down lots of fresh straw when the weather turns nasty. It’s not uncommon then to find the birds huddled together for warmth, sometimes with or on top of goats, sheep, or a cow even.