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.

Here’s a comparison of various egg types, just to give you an idea of the size differences. Eggs from left to right: goose, 6.5 oz.; duck, 2.6 oz.; chicken 1.8 oz; chicken 2 oz. I put the goose and duck eggs into the incubator, and the chicken eggs were breakfast.

Normally, I don’t weigh the eggs [...]

December isn’t prime nesting time, but we can’t convince this banty hen of that. This is her first nest, but she seems to have the basics mastered. Puff up and spread out to cover the eggs, screech at anybody who gets close, peck when the screech isn’t enough. The chances of her raising young through [...]

He’s always been a little strange.
Photo by JenniferP

This gentle rooster hatched last year. He’s the only single-combed chicken on the place. The rest of my full-sized chickens are pure Wyandotte of one color pattern or another, all with pea combs. I suspect the mother hen sneaked across the road to cavort with that big strapping single-combed rooster from my neighbor’s flock. Mr. [...]