There are some amazing kindnesses that chickens perform, without seemingly any profit to themselves, other than perhaps to fulfil a need and maybe not even then.
Sometimes people comment in surprise that hens will raise anything but their own eggs but that isn't even half the story. Not only will they raise other species from eggs but some hens will even take on and adopt chicks and other baby birds. In my experience though, as with anything to do with poultry, there are no written rules and it is very much up to the individual hen as to what she will and won't do.
Snow Kitten and 3 of her adopted chicks
If you have been following my blog you will know that this year, I have had several hatches of very late chicks, including some frizzles and fine feathered Sebright crosses. In an attempt to keep everyone in the best possible environment I decided to try to get one of my young Cochin hens (Snow Kitten), who had recently gone broody to adopt some of the chicks. These were to include all but one of the blue feathered chicks, who seemed particularly vulnerable to our recent spell of horrid cold and wet weather.
A very full and sleepy (note the messy beak) happy chick
My light blue/porcelain chicks (two plain and one mottled with grey) seem to have come to me through two very fine and sybaritic ancestors, a Barbu de Watermael called Gabrielle, who was definitely a house hen and Aramis a beautiful Blue Polish, again a lover of creature comforts, who unlike my other robust and fearless Polish shunned cold weather. These three blue chicks, in many senses of the word, were my core group in need of warmth, although as the weather deteriorated, we gathered a few more along the way. I must also tell you that the chick above is two months old but has still been adopted by my Cochin. The object of this exercise was also to allow the other more hardy chicks to free-range as much as possible, whereas the three babies would be able to rejoin their original groups when the weather permitted. That was my hope anyway and to do so without causing stress to Snow Kitten.
Something I had not reckoned on was that my mother hens, who came from my tree roosting group would attempt to return to roost in the bay tree before their chicks were capable of climbing. Therefore Snow Kitten was on demand as a sort of Night Nurse as well as a Day Mother. One thing that absolutely amazed me was that after doing this for just one night she would ever afterwards come down the garden to the bay tree in the evening just to see if she was needed to supply this function! One particularly wet evening one of the older chicks, the sibling of one of the blue chicks in my group of three, actually slipped down to a lower branch, so he had to be scooped up and added to Snow Kitten's charges. As this chick is so large and cuckoo coloured and thus completely different to the rest, I thought my Cochin might protest but after a couple of light pecks, which just got him into place at the front of the nest box and with her chin resting on him, everything settled down.
I did have a plan on one particularly horrible day to put six more chicks with her in the run with the 3 blues and to which I had also added a light coloured buff frizzle but with the exception of the latter, this didn't work, I think it was just too much.
Snow Kitten gets a time-share in 3 of Cuckoodora's 12 chicks
I also followed through with my plan of letting the chicks with Snow Kitten out of the run to rejoin their original mothers and free-range and forage. I later found that Snow Kitten was following one of the mothers around and actually sitting down and covering a couple of her adopted chicks whilst the other mother carried on scratching for food. I would say that the other mother, Cuckoodora, tolerated Snow Kitten rather than saw her as an asset, which she certainly was to me.
In conclusion I could not believe my luck that this has worked out so well and again I stress that every hen is an individual and may react in a different way but if she trusts you, I believe she thus has confidence in what you are asking her to do. Today the three blue chicks and the buff frizzle are out free-ranging with Snow Kitten, who ideally despite their differing ages, regards them all as new babies and in need of covering-on-demand. There is seemingly no limit to the kindness of Cochins and other hen mothers-in-waiting.
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Until next time, all the very best from Normandie! Sue
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© Sue Cross 2015
