Mama Hazel

Woohoo! Hazel has finally done it!!! Oh, wait, let me back up a minute... For those of you who haven’t met her yet, Hazel is one of our smallest chickens here at the Hartford Homestead, both in size (4 lbs-ish) as well as age (10 months old). She is a terrible chatterbox who, on most days, likes to wear a little smokey grey number with a big bustle... that is unless she is in the middle of a molt, when she prefers to go “au naturel.” Her feathered stockings match her beard, and her wonderfully friendly personality can almost cause one not to notice her shocking lack of a tail. 

Hazel, giving me the eye for daring to eat
an apple and not offer her a bite.

Hazel (left) and here little "sister," Sipsy.  

Every since she turned 4 months old and one week, she has laid a vivid olive green egg almost every day, and that, in my opinion, has caused quite a lot of resentment in the coop, particularly from Ethel. Ethel is even smaller than Hazel and lays a very pretty pastel mint green egg that, in her opinion, is the only green egg needed here at the Homestead.  

I've heard of keeping getting your ducks in a row,
but eggs?!?!

Our totally cool egg skelter.  It helps us keep
track of which eggs need to be used first!  Can you pick out Hazel's?

Now, being young and small, Hazel has always been toward the bottom of the pecking order. However, the only one who really abuses the power of being above her (by a single rung, no less) is Ethel. She uses any excuse she can to give Hazel’s beard a tug, or chase her away from the spa (aka-a big hole of dusty dirt they have excavated in the yard in which they like to “bathe” at their leisure). But Hazel has an insurmountable spirit and big dreams that not even a bullying older sister can keep down.  

Ethel, the bully... "What's it to ya, bub?!"

Hazel’s not-so-secret wish, every since the age of 6 months old, has been to be a mama hen. After laying eggs for about 2 months, Hazel stopped last November and refused to venture out for her daily foray into the yard. I thought she might simply be laying an egg, but she never came out all that day, plus there was no olive egg in the box that night. The next day, the same thing. I opened the door and out the girls came… but no Hazel. That night, no olive egg. Now, I don’t know how long this hermit-like behaviour was going on before I noticed it, what with work and such, but once I did, I began to worry. I know, so unlike me, right? I had noticed that she hadn’t been laying any eggs for that past week or so, but then again, she was young and I had read that they will sometimes start and stop and start again, while they are working out the egg assembly line kinks. Now, however, she wasn’t leaving the coop or even getting out of the nest. Was she sick? Was someone eating her eggs?? Was she egg bound??? Oh Lord, please NOT that. Not only can hens die from this, the only remedy I found on the Youtube involved an egg bound hen, her devoted owner, a rubber glove, and a jar of Vaseline. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination while I reiterate,”OH LORD, please NOT that!!!” Finally, on the third day, I lifted her out of the nest to set her out with the other girls in the run. Now, Hazel has always rushed to me and let me pick her up and she’ll chatter with me while we walk around the yard. This. Day. Was. Different. As soon as she felt the breeze under her petticoat, she puffed her feathers up to twice her usual size and let out a screech letting everyone in the neighborhood know I was committing bloody murder. I set her down, HASTILY, on the ground outside of the coop only to watch her dart around to the door, jump in the coop, and climb back in HER nest box, all the while making clucks that were a scornful mixture of chastisement and indignation. 

"Would you mind putting out that light?
I'm trying to work here."

Okay, this was something new. After returning to my go-to source for information (Google), I found out that the behaviour she was exhibiting was typical of a broody hen. A broody hen, for those of us not hip to the world of urban homestead/farm jargon, is a hen who is trying to hatch out some baby chicks. When they are broody, a hen will not leave the nest more than once or twice a day (and then for only less than an hour), during which time she will eat, drink, and, uh, ahem... poop. She stops laying new eggs and will sit there and wait until her eggs hatch before coming out. This can go on indefinitely. OH boy. Now, I know we don’t have a rooster, and I’m pretty sure Hazel knows we don’t have a rooster, but that in no way was going to dampen her mothering instincts. For fear of her starving, and also to get her back to work making lovely and delicious eggs, we had to “break her” of being broody. There are a lot of theories how to do this, but that’s not what this post was supposed to be about. So, I’ll suffice it to say that it took me about 4 weeks to get her back to “normal” and earning her keep (I know that sounds harsh, but hey, this is an “urban homestead,” not a flophouse… well, that is unless you’re an adorable rabbit… or two).

An adorable rabbit... or two.

With things back to normal, we got through the rest of Fall and stayed strong through a very long, cold, snowy Winter. Finally, the weather broke, the temperatures rose, and two weeks ago… Hazel went broody again. This was the second time in 4 months, and she’s still not even a year old. Talk about drive and determination. I thought back to the last time I had to break her of being broody. It was a frustrating experience for both her and I that involved taking her eggs away from her, solitary confinement in a drafty wire cage, hunger strikes, and clucks that, in my mind, were lamentations for her missing babies-to-be. It was enough to break your heart, and for a soft-touch like yours truly… well, it was a long 4 weeks for us both. See, Hazel’s passion to be a parent is something to which I can strongly relate; here at the Homestead, after two years of searching, we are still looking for a surrogate to help us make our lifelong wish of being parents a reality… but I digress.  

I started thinking to myself. I said, “Self, it took you 4 weeks to snap Hazel out of trying to do something that she is clearly destined to do. It only takes chickens 4-6 weeks to raise up chicks once they are hatched and start laying again. That’s only 2 extra weeks, and think of how happy Hazel would be to finally be a mama hen.” Since I always make perfect sense, I knew there was no denying the logic in this. So, off to the feed mill I went in search of some fertile hatching eggs or day-old chicks to squirrel away underneath her. That was last Tuesday, and by Friday... You guessed it!  

Hazel getting used to her new "maternity ward" cage and nest.

Woohoo! Hazel has finally done it!!! She is now the proud mama, fierce protector, and doting teacher of 5 little balls of fluff that cheep, peep, and poop. For the first three days, she stayed with them in the nest that I made for her in a cage in the garage (with chick feed and a readily available water source), but in the past few days she has been taking them for short field trips to the yard where they scurry after her while she scratches happily in the dirt, stretching her wings and calling them over anytime she finds a delicacy: a wriggling worm, a tender blade of grass, a juicy little grub. 

Hazel and one of her baby chickies.

Proud mama Hazel with 4 of her 5 babies.

Showing the babies where the food and water is.

Babies first foray into the yard.
Mama is all puffed up, looking fiercely protective.

Nap time!  Taking a break from their picnic in the garden.

Like all little ones, the baby chickies love scratching around in the dirt.
Mama Hazel is looking over my shoulder, giving me
instructions and directing this photoshoot.

Now, I may be a little too proud of myself for thinking up an idea that Hazel clearly had long before I even realized what was going on, but I can't help but to stand back and smile every time I see this perfect little family, knowing that I played a small part in this miraculous new beginning here at the Hartford Homestead.