Thursday, July 8, 2010

Broody Chicken

i have a broody chicken. did i mention that before? having a broody hen in your midst is like a woman with bad pms. all this chicken does is sit in a corner of the girls' playhouse, yells at you, ruffles her feathers at you, pecks at you, and poops where she is sitting, which makes heat spots on her underside . she gets up maybe, once a day to eat, drink, and potty. other than that she is in that one dirty corner. "why?" you ask? she thinks she going to hatch a golf ball. yes, a golf ball. there were eggs, but we removed them to try to get her to move, but she found the golf ball to sit on. those eggs were never going to hatch. and here is where we will have a quick lesson in chicken eggs. i have found out that many people don't understand the chicken egg. some people think all chicken eggs will lay a baby chick. not so. you HAVE to have a rooster in your midst to fertilize the egg, the same way human males fertilize a woman's egg...need i say more? so the chances of you actually coming across an actual chicken embryo for breakfast is slim to none, for commercial hens are no where near roosters. on the ole farm or urban homestead they have their ways of keeping things in check. me, we don't keep roosters. well, i'm not suppose to. i have 2 baby boys i don't know what to do with, more on that later. anywho...chocolate(broody hen) has been sitting in that corner forever. i'm so tired of it. the kids can't play in their playhouse and i'm not getting my eggs from her. i heard you could put ice cubes under them, remove the eggs(check), wait it out(check), or remove them from the nest. putting ice cubes under my mad chicken did not sound like fun, so i braved the wrath of chocolate, picked her up and put her in a locked pen with a roost so maybe she could cool her featherless underside. we'll give her a week to get over her broodiness and see what happens. i just want my eggs back.

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