When we last left our broody hens and chick-hatchings, we had just had another Austrolorp hen go broody, wondering if perhaps the Lord was not done in granting chicks this year.

And sure enough, we moved her into one of the little chicken pen areas in the piano room, and she hatched out somewhere around eight or so — Group 16!

I didn’t get pictures when they were younger and with their mama, and they have since moved on to our chicken pen area (which is our staging area for younger birds before going to the main chicken tractor), but here are a couple of them as they are now:

New Chicks 2012 Sixteenth Hatching in Pen Area
New Chicks 2012 Sixteenth Hatching in Pen Area Again

And a video:

We did have yet another hen start to go broody recently, but because of the difficulties in trying to bring chicks through the winter, we just pulled any eggs she was sitting on, and she eventually lost interest. I don’t like to do that, but we’ve had to try to take care of young chicks when it’s really cold, it it takes quite a bit of effort (you can see a little of what we had to do during the pretty bad cold-snap we had a couple of years ago.

Anyway, once again we are very thankful to the Lord for granting these provisions of the chicks throughout the year, and pray they are used for His glory and the benefit of His people.

— David