Mother and (Hopefully) Daughter Portrait

Here's Chicken Lickin's new arrival. She is still sitting on one more egg, due tomorrow by my calculations.

From the email bag:

Dear Chick-Ann:
Just curious... why take eggs from the other chickens for her to sit on?
A reader

Dear Reader:
Good question. The first part of this mystery is easily explained. Chicken Lickin' is single and has no man in her life. Despite that, she laid nine (unfertilized) eggs and sat on them. Bantams love to brood eggs.

Big chickens have been bred over the years to be non-broody. They've lost the instinct to hatch their own eggs. So, when we see that a bantam is wanting to be a mamma, we'll give her eggs from the big chickens to hatch. We took away the unfertile eggs and replaced them with the fertilized eggs. This chickie is a cross between an Arucauna and our Cochin rooster, Lester.