1 DOZEN

Almost like a symbolic gesture to mark the start of my Year of the Chicken today I became a “mother” again. For the third time.

Not a mother of a child. I am already a mother of one child, and a “mother” of a dog, and a “mother” of four chickens. Actually not strictly a “mother” of the last two, more like a vessel for food delivery. Which sometimes is what a mother actually is. And today I have also become the symbolic mother of all of the above non humans and in three weeks hopefully 12 cute little cheeping balls of fuzz. 

As I said this is my third time, having already attempting this twice before with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately we fed a fox the first time. And the second time, three of the four cute little cheeping balls of fuzz grew into large feathered fiends who enjoyed a good crow at 3am. Which was not fun but they were tasty none the less. 

Now the youngest of my little flock of four has decided to become a segregate teenage mum. She is less than a year old and has chosen the career path of raising chicks. The other three, are a somewhat mix of productivity. There is one hard working girl, laying a single very large egg every day, and two lazy bums, who obviously have decided to go on a permanent holiday. But they are full of character, fun to watch and lucky for them too old and tough to eat so they have escaped the dreaded chop. 

new mum

For a week now my little black hen has taken up position in the laying box, protesting quite loudly when either myself or my husband attempt to remove eggs or her. So this morning we blessed her with one dozen fertile eggs purchased from a local chicken breeder and set her up with a potential brood of 12 chicks. 

With 12 assorted eggs nestled under her, she ruffled her feathers and settled in for the next 21 days on the nest. 

natures lucky dip

This time we have decided to give some pure bred breeds a go. The blue eggs in the front are platinum sussex, the next two are araucana, the next are black australorps and the last six are mixed breeds. Basically the mongrel equivalent of the chicken world. We are very excited to see what will come out. Nature's lucky dip. 

My potentially 12 little balls of fuzz will be marking the time with me over the next the next 12 months. 

Who knows where we all will be on the 1st of November 2015 at the end of the Year of the Chicken.