It seemed active and looked like it was attempting to find food. The hen fiercely protected it. However, she seemed tolerant of certain members of the flock. The mottled in the background is the papa and she had no problem with him sharing the same scratch area as she and the chick. She tolerated the Rhode Island Reds as well. Actually, that's all the adults in there right now. She had a problem with the younger birds and ran them off.
I realized water was a problem. The waterer is suspended a few inches off the ground to keep it cleaner. I could lower it but it wouldn't have been an ideal situation for the length of time the chick would need to reach it. I held the chick to the water and it drank a little. I found a shallow dish and put it near where the hen was keeping the chick. Hoped the hen would help it to the water.
Alas, it was too little too late. The next morning, I found the chick dying on the ground. It was taking its last breaths. Here's where the sad scene comes.
The buff hen was hovering forlornly near the chick. The interesting thing was that the RIR was right there too. She had been sitting on some brahma eggs that I was going to take away soon. I didn't keep track, but I was pretty sure they were long overdue and not going to hatch (no brahma eggs have ever hatched, either naturally or in the incubator). Looked in her nest and they were all gone. Must have been the egg-stealing snake I've yet to lay eyes on. The RIR was sitting near the chick in her puffed up broody mode. This little scene really touched me. I don't know if the RIR thought the chick was hers since her eggs were gone, or if she was mourning with the buff.
Both hens were sharing a nestbox the following day. Chickens are so interesting in the things they do! I'm not leaving any more eggs in the boxes. I don't want any more hatchlings this year, especially since they'll all just be black or RIR/cochin mixed. Hopefully next year, one of this year's chicks will be a more colorful roo to give me more color in the hatches. There is the buff cockeral in the oldest batch, and maybe a birchen in the youngest. Not that I don't like the mottleds, I really do, just not so many of them.
In the rabbitry: I'm pretty sure now that Dreamspinner's are broken siamese sables. I guess they are inevitable if I'm going to have sable points. The weanling broken sable pt doe is looking very promising. I decided not to worry about broken sable pts as there will be plenty of solid ones. It will be about type.
In nature: I've been hearing a familiar drone far off somewhere. It could have been machinery, but it seemed awfully consistent for that. Followed my suspicions online and learned there is a small brood of 17 year cicadas emerging in the Appalachians this year. This was the sound I remembered from 2008 when there was a huge emergence in this area. I had never experienced it before and it was astounding! That time there were hundreds in my yard and the surrounding forest and it was almost deafening.
This cicada was on the barn siding in '08. I haven't actually seen one this year, but I now know that's what I'm hearing. Once you hear it, you don't forget it.
tnt
