One of our Bourbon Red hens, Mango, has been sitting on a clutch of 14 eggs for 4 weeks. I had thought that she had stopped laying as I hadn’t found any of her eggs for a while, and then one day,
quite unexpectedly, I came upon her stash in one of our lilac bushes.
Turkey hens will lay eggs until they have decided they have laid enough (only the turkey knows what “enough” is) and at 1 egg every day or so, she must have been collecting this clutch for over 2 weeks. Once they are done laying, they will sit on those eggs until they hatch.
Mango sat on those eggs all day, every day, thru rain, snow, wind and hot sun, with the exception of a daily trek down to the turkey pen for water and food. If you came up to her in the nest, she would hiss and puff herself up like a big old toad and to look as large and scary as possible.
Once refreshed, she would head back to the nest to continue her vigil.
And there she is, back in her lilac bush.
We didn’t know exactly when Mango started sitting on her clutch, so it was a bit of a surprise when I went to check on her this morning and she was not in the nest and all I found were broken eggs.
After a short search, we found 6 little poults, peeping away and darting in and out of the long grass.
You can see one of the poults in front of Mango…the rest are hiding underneath her for both warmth and protection.
At the start of this post, I said the stork was busy, and boy was he ever.
Not long after finding the turkeys, Hubby whistled to me from the barn (yes, we have a very high tech communications system here at the ranch) and started calling “Baby”.
So down to the barn I trotted, and there was our alpaca Hope and her brand new boy cria, Philadelphia, or Phil for short.
He is a nice healthy 16#s with a wonderfully soft coat…I think they all feel like a fluffy cloud when they are first born.
Phil was already on his feet when we found him, the afterbirth had passed, and he was wobbling around still somewhat covered in the placenta.
Not too long after the crias are on their feet, they start looking to nurse. This can be a rather comical affair as they know the “milk bar” is under mom “somewhere” but watching them try and find that “somewhere” can be very entertaining.
They try between mom’s front legs, her rear legs and just when they seem to have found the teat, they are back to looking in other areas.
Getting born is apparently a very tiring affair…here is Phil napping and sunbathing…yes, it looks like he is dead, but he is not…the blood on his midsection is from the birth.
And here is Phil in what I call the Sphinx position, which is actually known as a “cush”.
Dolly the Lama and some of our other alpacas checking out the new baby.
Happy trails to you all, until we meet again
Diana at Rolling E Ranch