Saving Chicks

Our blog is four weeks behind and still stuck on Mallorca, but today we’re posting about saving chicks.

I can get you caught up quickly:

We are working at a yoga retreat center in Villamartin, Spain and for the past two weeks our duties have included taking care of the chickens and these pretty birds every morning.

We go out and feed the forty something chickens, geese, turkeys and funny looking birds all the organic veggies they want, and then we carry on and collect the eggs the clucking hens left us earlier that morning.

Well, sometimes the hens decide they want to stay seated for the next 3 weeks and hatch these little eggs.

We were told that the retreat center didn’t want any more chickens running around, so we were instructed to snatch the eggs from the hens every morning.

I have some moral issues with this, so I make James do it.

James doesn’t like doing it either.

So then this happens:

Oops.

I’m pretty excited about my five new friends.

NOTE: There were seven. We had two days off. So you do the math. Yes, I had a meltdown mid chicken coop.

We had to play triage at first and make sure the chicks were eating and drinking. Mama hen was pretty preoccupied taking care of herself and started leaving the little chicks behind while she went looking for food. While James danced around distracting all of the 40 other birds, I went over and picked up the littlest chick and sat down with her in my hands and started feeding her. Out of nowhere, this gal shows up all pissed off at me for holding the chick.

She scared me enough for me to release the little chick and then she herded the little one back to the squad. We quickly figured out that this guineafowl is actually helping the mama hen out. She follows the chicks and mom everywhere they go, always at the back of the line and pulling 360s looking out for predators (aka Tarynne and James and the big ugly turkey).

It’s amazing. We sit around watching and laughing, suspecting that she might actually be delusional or have some sort of identify crisis and think the chicks actually belong to her.

It’s been three days, and everyday we go and watch this guineafowl glued to this family. The mama hen seems to appreciate the help, and in a non-traditional way this cute little scenario reminds me of my own family.

It’s the sweetest thing I’ve seen in a while, so I thought I’d share.