A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

Texas is hot in August. How hot you ask?  It is so hot that eggs can hatch without a chicken sitting on them.

I know this because we picked up an orphan chick from a person who had several chicks hatch without a hen. She gave four away and then there was a late bloomer.  We still had our chicks separated so we thought adding to them would be fine.

We brought the little black chick home and put it in with the others that night.

We have discovered that when you move chickens at night they wake up and think they have always been in their new home.  (At least that is what we assume.  They transition very well.)

The next morning, I moved the chicks outside in their wire cage to enjoy some grass. When I checked before I left for school, the little black chick had managed to get through the wire and was wandering around in the big world alone.  This was not a good idea.

I put the chick back in a cardboard box in the house and went to work. The little black chick lived in the box until it was too big to get out of the wire cage.  It was still considerably smaller than the other chicks and they began to pick on it.

I moved it back inside into a larger tub.  It was safe but very lonely.  It cheeped all the time. Beekeeper Brian put the stuffed cat in the tub with it.  That made it happy.  Now it snuggles up with the stuffed cat every night.  I guess it thinks that is its mother.