With temperatures still hovering just below 100 today we are on full alert against heat stroke for man and beast.
Part B of my fun chick hatching experiment is in full swing; now that I successfully hatched 22 cute little baby chicks in my new handy dandy incubator.  My initial hypothesis that these chicks would be hardier not being subjected to the rigors of two – or three – days of getting thrown around post offices from Ohio to Kentucky was spot on.  These little fuzzy bundles are the hardiest we have raised in our 20 years of raising chickens.  But that was part 1.  Part 2 consists of heading out in the middle of the night with a flashlight in one hand and a handful of baby chicks in the other.  I sneak into the hen house late at night and slip six baby chicks under a broody hen.  So far, so good!  She has accepted them without question since, as far as she knows, the chicks hatched while she slept.  No matter how well we pamper our little peeps no one does a better job than a mother hen.  It’s funny to think that broody hens (hens that quit laying and start to settle in to raising chicks) are normally the bane of a chicken farmer’s existence but with this system we will welcome them with open arms and hands full of chicks.