The babies are just over a week old. They seem to mature faster with mama. In this picture, you can see how babies go under their mom. They go under mom to stay warm and protected. Believe it or not, these are not all of her babies. This is only about half of them. The others are under her, probably sleeping. Sometimes, babies like to poke their heads out and look around from the safety of their mom. Here you can see that this baby has wing feathers. It's only a week old. When we raised babies, they tend to grow slower and die more. But, when mama takes care of them, they grow faster and rarely die.
Right now, mama wants to keep her babies away from her flock. This is because, sometimes, the flock kills babies. If there are too many roosters, the first babies that will die are the young males. If food is too scarce, the flock might kill and/or eat the babies. This is because, if there are too many roosters, there aren't enough hens for everyone and too many roosters results in hens dying from being over-bred. If there isn't enough food, the babies die first because adults can always make more babies, but they can't make more adults. By living this way, the flock is more able to survive and be stronger and healthy. Chickens aren't the only animals to live this way. Most animals that live in social groups do this, like hippos, elephants, lions, and even ants.
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Just two brothers
Nanners & Mashers are brothers who just want to share their birds with the world. Archives
April 2016
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