Rural Gardening: What a hen, she adopted two babies., 1 by smedgekles

smedgekles wrote:
We had two barred rock hens hatch babies at about the same time. One is a second time mother as she hatched babies last year, her name is KJ. Usually mama hens want nothing at all to do with other hens babies and will peck at them. We would let them out sometimes to wonder while we were out and of course the two mamas (KJ and Poozie) would decide to fight, we had to keep them seperated in the yard. The babies however would seem to go to KJ, she never pecked at them, but if KJs babies went near Poozie she did peck them. back in their pens and runs Poozie found a way to escape out of her run and would leave and let her babies there and go off pecking and hunting. This happened several times so we just put her back in the big pen and gave the babies to KJ who is caring for them like she had them all along. The picture is of KJ with one of Poozies babies on her back. What a mama she is.