Tiny Mother’s Day Miracle

I have a sweet story of motherhood to share. On Easter Sunday, a little cream Legbar female hatched along with a white Icelandic male. They shared the same brooder and were inseparable. They are four and a half weeks old now. Ten days ago two tiny cream Legbar females hatched and they were in a brooder in my office. The re-homing of my Icelandic flock made it necessary to move the little birds around so that the bigger cages could house the Icelandics overnight until they were picked up by their new owner. Reluctantly I put the three-day-old babies in with the four week olds. I was a little concerned that they bigger ones might bully the little ones. I could not have been more wrong. The little foursome have formed a family. The four week old is mothering the babies just as a broody hen would do, clucking at them to eat, keeping them inline, and sitting on them to keep them warm. It is just precious.

In this picture you can see one of the babies just peeking out from under “mama” at the bottom of the photo.

Here is the second baby peeking out from the right.

While I was messing with the camera settings the baby fell asleep.

I ended up with my camera on a weird setting and took this rather artsy picture of the entire little family. You can see all four beaks in this picture.

 

This just proves that mothers come on all ages, shapes, sizes and species. When you’re a little chicken, all it takes is love and some warm feathers to be a great Mom. Happy Mother’s Day from the Buck ‘n Run Ranch!