Asher Farm Market & Asher Farm

May brought us a BABY RUSH!!  How much fun is that?

It started around the first of April with a broody Barred Rock hen who decided to sit on about ten eggs. I had missed picking up eggs the night before so she had a nice group.  When a hen gets broody and she wants to sit, she will do it on one egg or a dozen, or a golf ball if that's all she has. LOL  So she likes to sit eggs and raise babies, it was a mix of all my different chickens but she didn't care.  So I left her with the eggs to sit.

On the morning of May 1st this greeted me...

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Not even completely dry, this was the first of ten to hatch. Mama was proud of her babies.

Chicks grow and change so quickly. So while this was going on,  in the chicken yard, I was keeping an eye on a Blue Front Amazon hen in the aviary. She was in the nest box alot, figured we had a couple eggs, then the food and water dish started staying empty which is a sure sign they are feeding babies.  I've bred and raised all kinds of parrots for 25 plus years. I allow the parents to feed their chicks the first 21 or so days, its good for the parents and the chicks. But to have tame parrots you have to pull the babies and hand feed them.  Unlike baby chickens, baby parrots are helpless, they have to be fed often and kept very warm. So along about May 15th my instincts said I better see what was in their nest box, and this is what I found.

So I pulled them and brought them in to start hand-feeding them and handling them.

In the OTHER mean time, a second barred rock decided she wanted to sit some eggs too.  So she got parked on about 6 eggs. And then one of my cute little Rouen ducks decided to sit her OWN eggs.

I pulled the Amazon chicks around the 15th of May. The first batch of ten chicken babies grew like weeds. Mama left them on their own, which is what Mama chickens do. And they think they are big independent chickens now... LOL with their little half grown selves. But they put themselves to bed in the chicken house at night and run around the yard all day long.

So the first few days of June, these were the faces I met one morning.

She hatched four of six, one is the cutest little black chick I've ever seen. He was a couple days behind the others and Mama's get tired of sitting tight on just hatched chicks and eggs, so she wasn't so keen on keeping him warm first out of the egg. I found him wet and a bit too cool.  Brought him in, put him under a heat lamp, got him warm and dry and cheeping strong.  I took him back to her and she was a little more pleased with that baby. He's smaller than the other three but growing quickly. They will be out and about in the yard in another week or so. for now they have a cozy box in the pen. And last... but certainly not least... on Monday we had the first pip, our little Rouen duck hatched her first babies!! We got three of these little cuties.

There seems to be so much death in the world and in the news. There is so much sadness and heartbreak and fighting and chaos. But for just a moment, I can see life all around me, and know that evil is not winning. Even if its just in the innocence of these little guys here. Its life. Its still joy. Its still God.