Hens and Chicks

In the late winter our beautiful hen, Lois, died and our other beautiful hen, Francine, became ill but luckily she recovered.  I don't want to talk about the illnesses, other than the one cool thing that came from it was when we took Francine to the veterinary hospital we saw this gorgeous golden eagle with a broken wing in this photo with my son.

The eagle is expected to make a full recovery.

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As I said, Francine recovered with lots of care from us, and this is the first photo of took of her upon her recovery.  She followed us out front as we were gardening and I thought she looked lovely in this splash of sunlight under the Japanese maple trees with the crocuses.

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Chickens are flocking birds so we knew we had to adopt some friends for her.

Bonnie is a Buff Orpington, same as Francine and Lois, Kendra and Debbie are Silver Laced Wyandottes and will grow up to have black edged feathers with white centers.

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At first I had hoped Francine would raise the chicks but she's not mentally prepared to do that, so we're hand raising them just like we did our first clutch of chicks.  She's interested in the chicks so as long as she remains non-aggressive toward them we'll allow "Supervised Visits."  These also make for good photo ops!

Yes, being this close to Easter I can't resist putting Easter Eggs in the photo!  Can you see Debbie and Kendra on the right side of the photo?

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Here's Francine getting up close with Bonnie

Although Francine looks intense, I like to think she's saying to Bonnie,

Happy Easter!