Starting to look more like chickens...

Starting to look more like chickens and less like fluffballs....

Never mind.  look at that cute tuckus!

The chicklets are two weeks old in these pictures.  She hatched 7 of the 8 eggs and still has all 7 chicks, amazing and wonderful since we are allowing them a lot of freedom, only locking them up at night.  

In the picture below, the upper hen with the chicks around her is NOT the mother.  The lower hen is, occupied with her digging.  She digs worms and finds bugs and small toads and such for her brood, and I feed them my special mix twice a day, adding kefir to moisten it since I have plenty.  She doesn't notice the other hen yet, but there is about to be a beat down.

Uh oh.  Interloper alert.

And there she goes, in attack mode.

"These are MY worms for MY babies!"

These chicks came from eggs from Andy and Haley of Eddy Farm in Newington, CT and are from a mixed flock, watched over by a Maran rooster.  You can see that all the chicks are feather-footed like their papa. 

Safely in for the night.

A few seconds of the chicks eating the home made starter mix.

And a couple minutes of the hen feeding her chicks during the day.  The other hen sneaks in and grabs three worms that the broody dug up for her chicks.  She is a devoted mother, even though she is not the brightest bulb in the box.