NO PEEPS

It should have been today. It’s been three weeks and it should have been today. But instead, today there are no eggs and no peeps.

Three weeks ago I purchased nature’s lucky dip, a dozen fertilised eggs and set under my little black clucky mum. Today, three weeks later, there are no peeps.  What went wrong? I'm not exactly sure but I do have a theory. Last weekend things went pear shaped and now, there are no little balls of fuzz, no peeps.

We were warned it was coming. We knew it was going to be a bad. We knew we were in for a couple of days in the high 30’s and I thought we were prepared for it. A predicted heatwave for the weekend. Two days when the temperatures would soar as high as 40⁰C (104⁰F). I had some concerns for mum and her eggs but I was confident that I could see her through it. She was happy sitting on her nest behaving like a proper expectant mother chicken. I made sure she had plenty of water, good air flow around her and if she got off the nest, I made sure she wouldn't be off for too long. But when you work a full time job, away from home, you just can’t be there all day, every day. Unfortunately an expectant chicken is not considered  a reasonable excuse for missing work. So on Monday morning, after a quick check, I left  the day, leaving my chicken, and her eggs, to their own devices. That’s when whatever happened, happened. 

Upon returning home that afternoon I went to check on mum and eggs only to find her sitting on an empty nest. Not one egg left. Nothing but one half of one shell. It was an epic fail. What happened? What went wrong? Did mum eat the eggs? Or did one of the other chickens or something else find its way into the nest and devour them? I had no way of knowing. All I knew was that mum was sitting on eggs in the morning and in the afternoon she wasn't.

My initial reaction was one of shock and disappointment, closely followed by a pang guilt. But as I walked back to the house something else settled over me. A feeling that was a mixture of acceptance and determination. If you can have such a feeling. Completely ignoring the fact that dinner needed to be prepared and that my husband would be home within the next half an hour I started to rummaged through ‘Google’ hoping to find an answer.

‘clucky chicken no eggs’ = buy eggs. No good.

‘clucky chicken eggs gone’ = rats ate them, other chickens ate them…  And then.

The only reasonable answer that it could be. The eggs were not viable. There were no chicks. No peeps. I had found a site on 'Google' that revealed that a mother chicken will ‘talk’ to the eggs and if they don’t answer back then she will eat them. That must be it. That must be the answer. Was it possible that the high temperature over the previous weekend had caused all the eggs to ‘die’ and the only choice for my chicken was to dispose of her eggs? There were no peeps. That had to be it.

My next concern was, “what do I do with a clucky chicken with no eggs and no peeps? Does she still need to sit on eggs for her allotted time, hatch them and raise her brood? What happens now?” Back to ‘Google' who provided advice that ranged from the ridiculous to the downright cruel. I even contemplated for a whole night the idea of 'chicken adoption'. Purchasing several day olds for her to raise as her own. It was discussed, it was planned and it was all but put it into action. The next day, however, it was clear that this would not be necessary. Our little mum had decided on her own that enough was enough and she was off her nest and had re-joined the other girls. I must confess I was a little sad that this had happened. I really was looking forward to a handful of warm, peeping fuzziness.

In reflection, these past four years of living a semi-rural life has made me quite pragmatic about things like this. If this had happened when we lived in suburbia I would have been devastated and mourned the loss of the little ones that never came to be. More than likely even shed a tear or two. But this is the reality of my life now. This is not the first time that my little flock has suffered a significant loss since we moved here. Foxes, eagles and hawks have all helped themselves to a chicken dinner care of my girls. And only this past year, helped by my mum and dad, we dispatched, plucked and prepped the three young roosters who hatched from my last batch of peeps. 

There will be another chance for peeps in the future. And I will be better prepared next time. Maybe I will try hatching them and raising them myself.

Hmmm... I wonder how much an incubator and brooder costs?