Maran Chicks

On a totally unrelated note, we bought 5 Maran chicks from our neighbor Rick at www.rolofarms.com about a week ago. They have been living in a clear plastic storage bin brooder but I moved them yesterday into one half of the big white brooder box. They have lots of room now and are pretty happy in there.

This is the original guy that I hatched from my home-made ice chest incubator. The other 5 are a couple days behind. We gave him a stuffed animal to keep him company when he was all by himself. (An eagle, really?!? You would think that I could have found a stuffed chicken so close to Easter time, but no such luck.) Now this little guy has taken on the role as protector of the flock (we are convinced that he is going to be a rooster). Any disturbance and he cranes his neck to see what's going on, then rushes to the intruding hand, etc. and begins pecking at it.

My original intent was to take advantage of one of our layer hens that went broody and put some eggs under her. Then she could raise them and we will have some fresh new layers next year. However she came off the eggs after about a week. I didn't think any of them would make it cause the eggs were barely warm when I found them and I had difficulty getting my incubator to stabilize on a good temperature for a few days. So out of 6 eggs I got this one little guy. I couldn't leave him alone so we bought the other 5 as soon as they hatched. Now we have 3 Black Copper Marans, 2 Blue Copper Marans, and this one guy somewhere in between, as he is from a different blood line. I thought he was black but now he looks gray when compared to the other chicks.