Free Range Hens Hatching & Raising Chicks Naturally: More New Baby Chicks & the Quickly Growing 1st Ones are now 4 Weeks Old! (Photos)

Photo: One of the two new baby chicks hanging out on the mother hen's back on a chilly fall day, so adorable - 1 week old at time of picture (the other one is hiding, keeping warm under mom)

A lot has happened since my first post on the recently hatched chicks, and I just wanted to post a quick update along with some of the better pictures I've been able to get since then as well. At the end of that post, I mentioned I had a second hen laying on a nest of eggs and was unsure if she would successfully hatch any, but sure enough, just over a week ago two more baby chicks came walking out of the coop into the outdoors - so exciting! Here they are on their first day of life:

I've been meaning to post a quick update ever since then but was just too busy and sidetracked, mainly with the fight against my dog's cancer - a story which unfortunately came to a sad and abrupt end earlier this week when she passed away on Tuesday evening, but thankfully it was quick, peaceful and I was by her side. I can't help but post at least one of the last photos I got of her here, in loving memory - rest in peace Pepper, you stayed strong and happy to the end you crazy but super sweet and loyal border collie...

Photo: Pepper on a sunset walk Monday evening, just 24 hours before she passed away...

But at least now I have not one but two hatches of baby chicks to watch grow up, and the seemingly bad timing of the chicks hatching in the late fall right before winter (especially the most recent two) now seems much more fitting, with new life springing up as another life passes on, making this difficult time for me just a little bit easier. The cycle of life continues, and with each death there always eventually comes new life.

The little chicks sure do grow up fast and it's a lot of fun watching them change so quickly from tiny fuzzballs the size of the mom's head to little baby chickens free ranging on their own getting noticeably bigger each day until one day they're eventually not so cute and adorable anymore when they reach adulthood, but then they start laying eggs which is the trade off. Before they were even two weeks old I witnessed one of them catch a bug, and I was really surprised how quickly they began foraging on their own, despite still following their mom around much of the time. At about two weeks I saw one fly a whole yard or two in the air, though only about a foot and a half off the ground. Before three weeks old they were already sleeping on the roost bars, and the highest one no less, which is a whole 5 feet off the ground!

Photo: Older chicks roosting with the adult chickens already, 10/3/18, the first day I saw them sleeping up there @ 2.5 wks/18 days old.

I thought maybe the mother hen carried them up on her back or wings, and maybe she did, but then this Monday I saw them fly up all by themselves, so they are able to jump and fly all the way up the roost bars to the top by about three weeks old, which blew my mind, but unfortunately I still couldn't manage to catch a shot of either of them in mid-air...

Photo: Chicks eyeing their targets before jumping/flying up to the next & higher roost bar, the upper chick almost to the top with only one more jump to go - 10/8, 3.5 wks/24 days old.

At the same time I was also able to get the most adorable photo of one of the chicks on the mother hen's back, which I had seen many times before but never when I had my camera on me.

In this case it was one of the two already to the top roost bar and just happened to decide and jump on mom's back as I was standing right there with my camera :)

Below is a nice closeup of three of the older ones on Wednesday hiding in the grass, two days shy of 4 weeks old:

So the newest two chicks are 10 days old today, and the older ones are a whole month old now, today being their 4 week birthday I believe. It's been colder this week with rain and a little snow but even the youngest chicks have been outdoors every day so far, and today is a nice break from the cold and cloudy weather with sunny skies and temperatures in the 50s, and the chickens (as well as the humans) are loving it.

The mother hens are both the same rare breed, the only Canadian breed of chicken, the Chantecler. None of the six chicks are either of the mother's genetic babies however, with the genetic moms being a mystery and the dad the same for them all - a Hamburg rooster. So I've also been doing a lot of guessing on what breeds or breed crosses the babies are and have my suspicions but only time will tell... Despite being the same breed and both turning out to be wonderful mother hens, the hen who hatched the most recent chicks kept her tail feathers spread like a turkey for almost the entire first week which I had never seen before and which the first mother hen never did at all, so that was kinda cool:

Unfortunately for the chickens, they haven't been truly free-range since early summer when a Husky attack killed several and then the Husky kept coming back for more, so I've been keeping them fenced in their fairly large pen for protection since then, and thankfully no more losses to predators since. But then about a week ago I was able to double their outdoor space by giving them access to the garden which borders the chicken pen, now that harvest time is past and frost has killed most everything else but the sunflowers, grass and weeds. So all the chickens are really loving that, and it offers the chicks much more cover and hiding places from the birds of prey.

The hope is that on top of more space to roam and forage while still having some protection from predators, the chickens will help prepare the garden space for next year by loosening the soil, fertilizing it with their poop, and eating many of the weed seeds which are in abundance right now (thistles are the worst around here). They also eat the sunflower seeds from any of the drooping sunflowers they can reach, bugs and worms, any unharvested pumpkins they can find, left behind green tomatoes, apples which fall from the apple tree, grass, weed leaves, leftover lettuce, kale, and etc. On Wednesday I took a lot of pictures, some of which are below - featuring the older chicks at nearly 4 weeks old and the younger chicks at just over a week old.

I managed to get one with two of the older chicks munching on a pair of pumpkins.

Here are the only two which are the same breed mix, finding camouflage and cover in the taller grass and weeds:

(They'll even make tunnels under the thickest weeds and fallen drooping sunflowers but I haven't been able to photograph that yet..)

A perfect pose, just relaxing in the grass:

And the younger chicks eating a green tomato the mom is feeding them:

Then foraging around with mom by their side, still mostly following her lead:

And the cutest of all, one of the little chicks poking its head out from under sleeping mother hen's wing:

Or is the cutest when they are up on mom's back?

All in all, baby chicks hatched naturally and raised by a mother hen is tons more fun than raising them in a brooder, and a whole lot less work as well, with the biggest downside seeming to be the necessity of a rooster and exposure to predators, particularly both cats and birds of prey which will kill chicks but not full grown chickens, and which the fences offer little protection against. So far we have managed to avoid any such attacks, I don't mind the rooster, and the chicks seem to be developing much more naturally and maturing more quickly than when raised in a brooder with me a human for their mother :)

That will be all for now but I will try to post updates as the little guys continue to grow and I get cool pictures. Thanks for your attention, hope you enjoyed the post, and if you appreciate the content please consider upvoting, sharing or resteeming - I truly appreciate all the support. Have a great day everyone. Peace.