"United we bargain, divided we beg."

Friday, June 20, 2008

second chance chicks


The yellow mama has hatched out two chicks. There are four more eggs, but I don't think they're going to hatch. I only just discovered the chicks when I went into the mama barn - that's the small barn where I milk the goats, keep the feed, and put any prospective mothers to hatch/birth their babies - to feed the chickens their afternoon ration. Both yellow mama and black mama (my sister says these names are racist) are brooding in there, but yellow mama has been on her eggs for about a week longer than black mama. I had settles them in their own boxes up on the shelf, but when I went in, yellow mama was on the floor and her eggs were uncovered in their box on the shelf.

"What are you doing down there?" I asked, and then I saw a tiny head peek out from under her. The babies must have somehow fallen off the shelf and onto the floor after hatching, but they both seem to be just fine. In the hopes that a few more eggs might hatch, I brought the other four eggs down and placed them next to her, but she paid them no attention. Normally, she'd immediately roll them underneath her breast feathers, but not now. Maybe after some chicks hatch, they abandon whatever eggs haven't hatched after a certain amount of time? I don't know. I'll just have to wait and see what happens.
Meanwhile, black mama still has a week to go. I hope that by the time her babies hatch, yellow mama and her brood, however many they turn out to be, will be ready to move on out of the mama barn and join the flock, because I read that mother hens hate each other's babies and will attack them whenever they can. 
And, of course, these chicks have one big advantage over the last batch: the pig is dead (see "sad day on the farm").

2 comments:

Dr24Hours said...

Simple accurate descriptions of non sentient entities are not racist unless they are being used cruelly to a sentient entity.

Just to be clear: Goats and Chickens are nonsentient.

Beanzo

Aimee said...

Gene, "sentient" means "able to percieve and feel things" from the latin, "sentire," to feel. Goats and chickens are most certainly sentient. But they don't care about color, and it isn't racist to call them black or yellow or red or green. It's a running joke with Jen.