Farm Photo 6/1/07: Whitey Gets Her Wish!

Two days after I posted these photos of Whitey The Chicken and announced that she was trying to hatch an unfertilized egg, I wangled a friend (who happens to read my blog) into leaving the craziness at her farm to come work the 91 sheep on mine. Okay, so I may have bribed her with the promise of large quantities of garden bounty and homemade baked goods. Whatever works is what I say.

She pulled up in a shiny red pickup truck and immediately started rummaging around the front seat, announcing that she had brought me some "genuine, certified, bonafide, honest-to-goodness, all natural, farm fresh, super duper, fantastic fertilized eggs for your poor chicken!" Then she triumphantly held out an egg carton, lifting the lid so I could see the gorgeous colored eggs inside. What a wonderful surprise gift.

"Okay, so how many do you think I should give Whitey, two?"

"The whole dozen of course."

"The whole dozen?"

"Well how big is she?"

"Not very."

As we tramped over to the henhouse, my friend explained that the first thing we needed to do was get the unfertilized egg out from underneath Whitey and throw it away because it was probably rotten. I explained that Whitey had recently switched nesting boxes and currently didn't actually have any eggs underneath her. But she was still spending all her time just sitting around as if she did.

Whitey glared at us. My friend, who makes fun of me for kissing my lambs and naming my sheep ("I got over that years ago") started cooing at Whitey in this sweet little voice, telling her how she was going to be so happy, how she would be able to arrange her eggs just the way she wanted them and then settle herself down on top of them. She said some other things that were really funny, but I was too nervous to remember them.

"I think you should be the one to put the eggs under Whitey," I told her. "She pecks. And it hurts."

"She's just a chicken!"

"She's not just a chicken. She's Whitey. She's, um, unique. Do you want gloves?"

"I don't need gloves." And then she had the nerve to laugh at me.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."


Day 1

But I am a wimp, and my friend is not. She carefully wrapped her hand around an egg and gently tucked it under Whitey. Peck!Peck!Peck!

"That's gotta hurt."

"She's just a chicken!" There may have been a little eye-rolling and head shaking, too, but I try not to pay attention to that stuff when I know I'm the cause of it. She tucked a couple more eggs under Whitey. Peck!Peck!Peck!Peck!PECK!

"Oh shoot. I knew I should have brought my camera."

She sighed, stopped tucking, and told me to go get my camera.

"Are you bleeding from all that pecking? Do you need peroxide?"

"Of course I'm not bleeding. She's just a chicken!"

I returned with my camera and attempted to capture the perfect action shot.

"Can you hold your hand there a little longer? I really want to get one of Whitey pecking you." Yes, I actually said that out loud. I still can't believe it.

"So how long does it take for the eggs to hatch?"

"Twenty-one days. Mark your calendar."

"But she's already been sitting in there like a week."

"Doesn't matter. She'll be able to feel the chicks moving inside the eggs, and she'll stay."


Day 7

I know nothing about hatching baby chicks, but apparently Whitey does. She's been faithfully sitting on those eggs all this time, only hopping down every once in a while to load up on food and water and terrorize her two coopmates. For a small chicken, Whitey is looking very big. She has puffed herself up in order to cover all of her eggs.

She spends her days in some sort of a mother-to-be trance that appears to be part zen, part coma. She is still fully alert on some level, though, because any time I put my hand near her she snaps out and tries to peck me.



Whitey broke two of her eggs early on (hey, it happens), so the official count is now ten. This morning, however, I happened to show up while Whitey was having breakfast, and when I counted to make sure there were still ten eggs I kept coming up with eleven. A bright white egg was staring up at me from the middle of the pile--and it was definitely too big to be Whitey's, as she lays itty bitty eggs.

This means either one of the other two hens jumped into Whitey's nesting box instead of one of the three other empty ones and laid an egg when Whitey was off stretching her legs, or Whitey somehow stole an egg out of another nesting box and moved it into hers.

Things have been hectic around here lately, and today was the first chance I've had to look through our copy of Chickens In Your Backyard. We usually order newborn chicks through the mail from a large hatchery, so (and this is pretty embarrassing to admit) I never thought that Whitey would be doing any actual mothering once the eggs hatched. I just figured that the babies would be on their own. But the book informs me that when deciding how many eggs to put under a hen, you must remember that once the chicks hatch they all have to be able to fit under the mother at night because that is where they sleep.

Whitey has been living with us for seven years, and in all that time I must admit that I've never ever thought of her as even remotely being the motherly type. This ought to be interesting. And I don't have much longer to find out.

This is Day 19 of Whitey Watch.

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