By: Jason Tsaddiq
A hen was brooding. The long, rectangular hen house had nesting boxes down each side and she had set up her “nursery” in a nesting box close to a door for which we were thankful since we could reach her and the chicks easily.
We affixed chicken wire to the outside of the nesting box – between the box and the rest of the hen house – to prevent the other hens from messing with the broody hen and her eggs, and eventually, her chicks. We cared for the broody hen daily by bringing just the right amount of feed and water only for her since she would not, and now could not, leave the nesting box.
Soon the eggs hatched and tiny little sounds joined the loud ruckus of the other larger, older, more experience fowl. Again, we cared for the babies as we had cared for their mama – bringing the proper feed and water in a small shallow bowl.
One spring day, I was tending the hen houses. As I approached the house, I heard a cacophony of commotion emanating from the hen house, not an uncommon occurrence. I opened the broody hen’s nesting box from the outside and saw the reason for the disturbance: one of the new baby chicks had some how found its way between the chicken wire and the rest of the hen house. Two or three older, more mature hens were pecking relentlessly at the baby chick who was now stranded: she couldn’t tackle the much larger hens and she could not return to the safety of her nesting box for the chicken wire had been bent back in all the chaos.
But the most heart-breaking yet cheering aspect of the turmoil was the action of the mother hen: she was ramming her head into the chicken wire, attempting to destroy the one thing that was between her and her baby chick. The wire had been stapled somewhat securely against larger hens but evidently a little space was left unguarded – the little space that the chick found and escaped through. As relentless as the older, more mature hens were pecking, attacking, squawking at the little one, the mother hen was just as relentless in her attempts to protect and save her vulnerable chick. Head butt after head butt against the stapled wire, the mother tried and tried, to the accompaniment of the tiny, little chirps crying for help and the loud, ruckus war-like squawks of the older hens.
Quickly, slender teen son was fetched to crawl into the hen house to rescue the scared, helpless little chick and to return it to its now-bloodied mother. Peace reigned.