"Don't count your chicks before they hatch."

 

How many times have we heard this and not really thought about the meaning? LOL I think we recently learned the real meaning. Easter Sunday, we put the ten eggs that we gathered that day under a broody hen in hopes of hatching some baby chicks (hopefully hens) to add to our layers as some of our ladies are getting a little older. Things went well for the first few days, with the exception of the hens who would get on top of the broody hen and run her out of her nest. They would lay their eggs in her nest, sit for a while, and then move on. We would have to pick the new eggs out of the nest. We didn't have a problem at first since we marked the eggs we originally put under the hen. With the continuous on and off the nest by several hens, three eggs ended up broken over a period of a week or so. A couple of times we had a hard time figuring out which eggs should be in the nest and which should not. A day or two before the eggs should hatch, the girls went out to check for eggs or baby chicks and found four eggs missing. Two days later, I found two more eggs missing. So, that leaves us with one egg (which hasn't hatched, by the way). I guess we have a hungry snake eating our eggs. Also, I think that it has been eating eggs for a while and we just left extra eggs in the nest that we thought should be there....lol.  So, who knows when the eggs was layed that she is STILL sitting on??? We have no clue. We are just leaving it under her for now with an egg with a fishing hook in it in hopes of hooking the snake so I can kill it. Makes me sad for the poor hen that is just patiently waiting on her babies.  Maybe the one will hatch. Just hoping, we get the snake. Ahhhhhh........gotta love this crazy life.