Adventures with Sillies...

I often refer to my Silky chickens as "the sillies."  They just look so incongruous; as if they are living cartoons, strolling around my yard.  When visitors see them they say things like, "Oh my gosh!" or "WOW!" or "What are those?"

One thing about Silky chickens is that they tend to go broody easily and often.  For those of you who don't share their lives with poultry, this means that the hens will sit on eggs.  Many chickens have been bred to just deposit their eggs and go about their business, but some breeds are prone to broodiness.  When a hen goes broody they park their warm, feathered underside on a nest full of eggs and just sit there.  The gestation period for chickens is around 21 days, so for three long weeks the little birds huddle on their nest, rarely leaving the eggs to eat, drink or eliminate.  It must be hard on their bodies.  Three of my Silky hens have been broody the last few weeks, two sharing a nest.

It was rather adorable to see the two sister hens snuggled up side by side on a pile of eggs.

Yesterday I went out mid day to check on the critters and I heard a little peeping sound from the Silky house.  I carefully lifted one of the hens and there was the source of the sound...

Freshly hatched, a little Brahma chick.  The Brahma's are my big laying hens, and one of them is daily determined to force her way into the tiny coop to lay an egg in the silky house.  So, the diminutive chicken will be raising a huge layer bird. She will be so surprised when her chick soon towers over her!