Chickens.

Remember how I said I had a chook sitting on eggs and five weeks later there were still no chickens?    I left the shed door where I had her open and she came out and never went back in so I cleaned out the shed ready for next time.   That chook just went back in with the rest and wasn't wanting to sit any more.  As you would, after 5 weeks!   Anyway, in the meantime I had a grey chook sitting on some eggs and Baby, my raised from an egg Aracauna seemed to be wanting to get in that nest all the time too.  And the little black Aracauna was also sitting on a couple of eggs in another box... I wasn't sure about them though and kept taking them off, collecting eggs, forgetting for a bit and finally just left them to it thinking that I'd better move them out so that the other chooks wouldn't lay in those nest boxes...but I didn't, not for a long time anyway.  Finally last week I noticed that Baby was the only one in that box and she was very pecky when I went near her so in the dark of night I lifted her box and put her in the cleaned out shed and in my head wrote down a date a couple of weeks ahead.   The next day there were 2 chooks on the other clutch of eggs so I moved those 2 chooks and their 7 eggs into a nest outside of the main hen house.   Within a couple of days Baby had a chicken.  A couple if days later there were 2 more.  She left the other 4 eggs in the box and as they were cold and there was no sound coming from them I removed them.  Sowithin days of me moving her she had babies.  Seemed my dates were a tad off!  Then I notice 1 lone chick with the 2 black chooks.  It seemed to be with the Black Aracauna while the other chook stayed in the nest on 5 eggs.   This afternoon I was out there feeding them and there is another chicken.  One chook was still sitting on eggs and this new chicken was out with the first chicken.  There is a noticeable size difference, as there would be seeing as there is 3 days between them.  I'm hoping that over the next week a few more will hatch and survive but this is not a good way of doing things.  I need to keep a better eye on them and move the clucky chooks and their eggs out so that the eggs are the same age and not being added too over the weeks that I leave them.  That is not good.  Some of these eggs could be a week or more older than the ones that have hatched and it is possible that the chook will leave the eggs and the chickens may be left to die unhatched...I hope not but I haven't managed things very well at all.

But, as of tonight I have 5 chickens, 3 with Baby in the shed and 2 with the other Aracauna.  And some unhatched eggs in the same enclosure in the same nest ...but with a different chook sitting on them...Fingers crossed it will turn out alright for them all.