I had a broody hen.
(No, her name was not Heathcliff, nor did she know anyone named Cathy.)
I went to the library and read up on baby chick lore. The one thing that I read that stuck with me was the fact that it is probably best that you do not assist the hatching chick because most of the time we end up doing more harm than good. There is a very complex sequence of events going on in that egg and short cuts can be fatal. This bit of information went counter to my motherly instincts, but I steeled myself to be patient.
When the hatching finally began, my little red hen was serene. You could hear the chicks peeping. And she answered them back from time to time.
Me, I was a nervous wreck. The urge to move the shell fragments once the chick had pecked through was strong, but I left them alone.
Out of about a dozen eggs, we only got 5 chicks and one of them didn’t make it. So there we were with 4 baby chickens. Oh I must tell you, there is nothing as sweet as seeing those little yellow heads peeking out of the top of a mother hen’s wing.
She used to walk around the lawn with her wings spread out and all the chicks would stay under them for the first few days. But very soon they ventured out on their own. A whole 2 or 3 feet away from the little red hen! She would lead them to some spot in the yard and scratch up the grass or weeds and uncover little bugs or worms and cluck to them and they would all come running to see what she had found and peck away at it.
In no time it seemed they grew into gawky teenagers and even started to squabble like them too. But eventually they took their place in the grand chicken scheme of things.
I miss having my own chickens. Someday I would like to have another flock. And when I do, I’ll be sure to find a little red hen and hope one day she turns up….. broody.