Broody Brains

[The15thMember]

My sisters let one of their hens go broody for the first time.  Her name is The Brains, because when she was a chick my littlest sister had 3 chicks that she was playing with and she said, "This one is the leader, this one is the brains, and this one is the mascot."    "The Leader" and "The Mascot" got other names eventually, but The Brains just stuck.  My sisters gave The Brains 7 eggs, and 3 of them hatched.  We candled the other 4 after she got off the nest, and they didn't seem to have developed at all.  The Brains is being such a good mom, showing the chicks how to eat and drink and scratch.  We love watching her with them.  They are so precious! 

[Jen]

I would love to have chickens, but I usually always have lab dogs, and now I have a lab and a dane which are prey dogs. I live in a close neighborhood and my yard is fenced in, so there would be no free ranging for the chickens. However, I do have a next door neighbor who has chickens, and they cluck through out the day... And I Love To Cluck back to them, I mimic them. The surrounding neighbors now when Jen's outside when there are two yards clucking 

[The15thMember]

I would love to have chickens, but I usually always have lab dogs, and now I have a lab and a dane which are prey dogs. I live in a close neighborhood and my yard is fenced in, so there would be no free ranging for the chickens. However, I do have a next door neighbor who has chickens, and they cluck through out the day... And I Love To Cluck back to them, I mimic them. The surrounding neighbors now when Jen's outside when there are two yards clucking 

  We have 4 dogs, a Pomeranian, a Lab mix, and 2 Anatolian shepherds.  We've found that as long as the dogs are exposed to chicks and chickens when they are young and learn that they are not allowed to chase them, we've had no trouble with the dogs and chickens being together.  The chickens are in a pen most of the time to keep them away from the herb beds and the miner bees, and because we don't like the little presents they inevitably leave us on the porch , but they do get supervised free range time on weekends when the kids are playing outside and can keep an eye on them.