Hens with babies

Here are some of the babies at our farm right now....first is the welsummer mama with her baby blue laced red wyandottes.  Earlier she had her own eggs and found a good hiding spot for herself next to our house, but a rat snake ate the eggs so I gave her some replacement eggs from our incubator.  She loves her babies!  It's funny she chases away other hens that try to come near her babies, but she lets the welsummer rooster come up and hang out with her and the babies.

 Next is a super-great-hiding-mama (a jungle fowl or golden phoenix hen - not sure which) that had babies without us ever realizing she was missing from the flock.  Becky heard a baby cheeping and fire ants attacking it, so then we wondered "where" the baby came from?!?!  After quite a bit of searching in the vicinity, we found she was hiding under a piece of wood that was only 4" off the ground, propped up by another piece of wood. She had 4 babies, and 3 of them were fathered by one of our favorite roosters "feed boy" (a barred rock). He was taken last week by a bobcat (daytime attack), but we're happy we have some more of his babies. The mama and babies now sleep in a dog crate at night (wow - it's a mess on that side of our house)

Here is another one of feed-boy's babies.  He is 1/2 barred rock, 1/2 welsummer.  Isn't he adorable?  I love how they have greenish eyes when they're young.