Chicken parenting is like regular parenting. Almost.
1) You obsessively check on your new chicks like it’s a brooder full of newborn babies.
The first few days after the arrival of new chicks I’m sitting next to the brooder babbling to the birds. I check on them every few hours to make sure they’re still breathing, drinking, eating, and pooping.
2) You clean pasty butt like it’s a dirty diaper.
Pasty butt (aka sewer backup) can occur in new chicks. Their plumbing clogs up and they get doody stuck to their bums. I check each chick bum every day from days 4-10 to make sure everyone is doing their business in a sanitary manner. It’s a thankless task but absolutely necessary.
3) You know each chick sound by heart.
Chicks make specific chirps when they are hungry, thirsty, and separated from their flock. I have been known to go running through the house to get to the birds when I hear the “security” cry.
4) You scold and praise your birds on a regular basis.
I’ll admit it. I speak to my girls in complete sentences about their day. We have had long discussions about who laid an egg outside the nest box or which one of them is spilling the feed. I ask them about their snack preferences (pizza, watermelon) and reprimand them for sleeping anywhere but their roosts.
5) You have left a function early, or declined to attend, “because of the chickens.”
Maybe it was approaching dusk and I needed to lock them up for the night. Perhaps I was concerned about them in inclement weather. It might have been I was concerned about leaving them unattended for so long, but yes, I’ve used them as my excuse.
There’s no shame in being obsessed with your own birds. And we could all learn a few parenting lessons from a mother hen!
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The post 5 Ways Chicken Parenting Is Like Real Parenting appeared first on Backyard Poultry Magazine.
