When Max & I moved into our first home, built a fabulous chook house and rescued 4 ex-cage ISA Brown hens… Never did we believe the journey those silly chickens would take us on!
Out of the 4 hens, by Feb this year we only had one left… Ilona.
Because they were rescue hens, we didn’t have any information on them. No age, medical history, or previous living conditions… Only that they were ex-cage hens, no longer needed & were to be killed.
We figured that when we got them they were probably 3+ years old & had experienced a pretty hard life. As sad as I was when they died, (spaced out over 3 years) I was happy that we had given them a better life for their final years.
That fact that Ilona out lived her feathered buddies was quite comical, considering we had named her A-Loner and now she was all alone! Yet, she wouldn’t stop nesting (on nothing but air) week in week out… I would lock her out of the house, remove the nesting boxes, coax her out into the garden… But she was determined to hatch something! Silly broody bird!
So….. We contacted a family friend to see if she had some fertile eggs we could pop under Ilona & wait to see if she would actually hatch something. We were given 9 eggs and Ilona was absolutely stoked to see them & hopped onto the nest straight away, set about fluffing herself up & bok, bokking happily she sat… & sat…… & sat!
And then….. on Good Friday, the first of 7 baby chicks were hatched!
We ended up with 4 females and 3 roosters & one very, VERY happy foster Momma Hen!