MOTHERING BUFF ORPINGTON HEN AND HER NEW CHICKS ALL DOING FINE

HELLO & Welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm! As you can see, mother Dorothy and her babies are all doing fine some 30 hours after putting these chicks under her. She has clucked and clucked and mothered one and all. It is raining and cool here today, in the 50's or so but they are nice and dry and very warm. She allows her chicks to run out and feed and drink and run around a bit but she soon clucks a little louder and they come running back under her wings. I could not ask for a better mother out of her. As she has always been friendly and sociable with me she allows me to move her around, pick up her chicks, pet them and reassure her as well that she is a good mother. All the while, she is clucking softly, day and night to her chicks.
I think probably tomorrow they will venture out a bit more I am thinking into the rabbit cage I have attached to this little wooden box as a make-shift run for them. She is alone with her brood and away from the rest of the flock. This seems to be working just fine and hopefully the raccoons and opossums will not find them where I have them in the yard to cause problems for them. Yes, we have both here in the center of midtown Jackson, TN. Lots of raccoons for sure. I see a lot that are coming and going from around the sewer openings in my neighborhood especially. And you regular followers will remember I had some make a home a few years ago in the chimney here. I even had a baby abandoned and had a professor from Union University sent some students out to retrieve it, as he was already raising a litter of orphaned raccoon kits.
Otherwise, things are the same here this weekend at the urban farm, with much rain for several days in the forecast or cloudy skies at least. So any further spring planting is on hold for now. Just waiting to have what is planted both here and at the community garden start to come up. So, I will leave you this day under rainy skies and baby chick watch with our ongoing urban farming affirmation: "URBAN FARMING: ONE EGG AT A TIME!"