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Henrietta is a small, particularly fierce hen who hatched out some baby chicks a few days ago.

Last summer she also hatched out a clutch of eggs but only one chick survived (his name is Lucky). Lucky’s four siblings were viciously attacked and eaten by raccoons or possibly cats. Anyway, after that debacle, I decided that I had better make a special chicken coop especially for brooding hens. Early this spring I managed to build such a coop inside one of our outbuildings.

The coop has a nest box that sits on the floor, which makes it easy for the chicks to get in and out and eliminates the possibility that one could fall and injure itself. Since baby chickens are even more susceptible to predators than full grown chickens, the brooder coop also has extra security.

After I built the coop, I tried to convince Henrietta to live in it. She refused. She then disappeared for a month. I figured she had either been eaten by a fox, raccoon, stray dog, owl, weasel, hawk or skunk. Much to my amazement she emerged from some tall grass in our goat pen with a bunch of peeping baby chicks in tow.

Henrietta is very protective of her chicks. One of the goats got too close to them and she jumped up on top of the goat’s head and pecked it in the face repeatedly all the while squawking murderously. The goat was left terribly confused.

Knowing full well the chicks would probably not survive the night if left outside, our resident chicken catcher (my husband, Cass) caught her later that day. Henrietta of course tried to attack Cass but he managed to wrestle her into the new coop.
Some of the chicks ran away and hid. After quite a lot of searching in the tall grass, Cass managed to catch these little golf ball sized fluff balls.