Despite their uncomfortable roosting arrangement, the mother hen and her chick are clearly midway through the weaning process.  Our youngest chicken is no longer glued to its mother's side, and instead opts to spend most of its time foraging with the cockerels.

With her first chick ready to fly the coop, Mama Hen has decided to move on.  Tuesday, I noticed her exploring the cockerel's coop, and Wednesday I found two eggs tucked in an out of the way corner.  I'm tempted to leave the eggs alone and see if our broody hen will successfully raise a larger clutch of chicks, but I'm not sure whether our cockerels are actually mature enough to be fathers.  Some of them are crowing, but the sounds are far from a real "cock-a-doodle-doo!"  What do you think?  Is a three month old rooster old enough to be a father?

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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