Apparently, Jed was not on crack...

Back in June we had the great chicken massacre of '10. We left town to go to Crown and ended up coming home to a back yard full of dead chicken. We lost most of the Dorkings and the White Faced, Black Spanish, it was devastating to say the least.

But back to the story: After the massacre I had not seen one of the Rainbows and I commented to Jed. He kept assuring me that Rainbow was out there and that he would see her periodically. Every night I would go out and close up and every morning I would open up the coop and still no Rainbow. After the second time I mentioned this to Jed and he would assure me that Rainbow was out there I decided to drop it and just assume Jed was on crack...

On Friday we were walking around the back yard working on things and Rainbow was walking under the coop... not only was she walking under the coop but a tiny day old chick was following her under the coop. I stopped dead in my tracks, pointed at the baby chick, and said something intelligent like, "Uaauahah!" Jed looked over and snapped me out of my stupor by stating, "See, I told you Rainbow was out here." I had to point out that Rainbow had a tiny shadow following her. Once he noticed he also made and intelligent sound and we went over to investigate. It turned out she had a tiny Dorking/Ameraucana cross following her. It was great to watch her protect her young... I now like her a whole lot more knowing that she's a good brooder and a good mother.... and because she does flying kicks of death at big goat's eyes whenever big goat gets too close to her baby. Later that day we saw another tiny baby run out this time a Blue Andalusian/Ameraucana cross. Jed found the nest later that day and we moved the next, mommy and chickies to what used to be the old duck coop. Mommy and babies are now moving around undesturbed by any other chickies, ducks, geese, goats, or humans. =) I'll post pictures when I can.

So for our first set of chickies... 7/9/10 - 2 chicks, mother: Rainbow (18 eggs in nest only two have hatched so far)