Charlotte is an attentive mother and tenderly cares for her offspring, except when they first enter into this world. Then she gives them a sharp peck on their tiny heads as if to say, as my wife Elaine claims, “You’d better listen to me, I’m your mother.”
Photo Above: Eli and Sam gather watercress from the spring on their grandparents’ Botetourt County, Virginia, land.
Photo by Bruce Ingram | Photo styling by Janette Spencer.
Which explains why I am warning our grandsons Sam and Eli, ages 11 and 9, not to be alarmed when we sneakily bring nine chicks to Charlotte’s henhouse, and she, well, attacks them. Why this occurs needs explanation.
Four-year-old Charlotte is a heritage Rhode Island Red hen, and for four consecutive springs she “has gone broody,” which means she sits on a clutch of eggs for 21 days before they hatch. Tragically, in my opinion, modern day “industrial” hybrid chickens have had the trait of broodiness bred out of them … which just seems wrong. Purebred chickens, like the ones our ancestors raised in these mountains for centuries, have simply gone out of style.
About 10 years ago, Elaine and I revolted against this trend, partly to honor her Ashe County, North Carolina, and my Franklin County, Virginia, ancestors who reared heritage birds and partly to keep this tradition alive. So we found a supplier of heritage Reds, and began raising them.
Charlotte has been a model broody until one recent evening (unknown to us) when she made a terrible decision. One of the other hens laid an egg in a corner of the henhouse, and for some bizarre reason known only to Charlotte, she left her nest to sit all night on a single egg. This, of course, caused the developing chicks to succumb in their eggs as the night proved a very cool one.
After much discussion on what to do, Elaine and I decided to contact our supplier and order 18 heritage Rhode Island Red day-old chicks, half of which will go to Debbie Harris, a fellow Botetourt County, Virginia, rural resident.
So on this day, Elaine has risen early to go to the post office and transport home the now two-day-old chicks to our basement where Sam, Eli and I await. As the three of us hover over a small enclosure, Elaine releases the 18 starving little fur balls which we have to teach how to drink. We dip each one’s beak into the waterer to give them some much needed liquid, and their natural pecking instinct enables them to take advantage of chick feed crumbles.
Next, I charge Sam and Eli with the task of deciding which birds will become Charlotte’s next generation of young. As the boys select chicks, they name them…giving them such strange appellations as Boots and Ruffles which makes sense in an odd sort of way.
Chicks selected and christened, I allow Eli (since Sam had the honor of first selecting and naming the chicks) to slowly and carefully carry a chick-filled carton to the henhouse. Before he arrives, I pick up Charlotte, who is sitting on a hard plastic egg, and her nesting box and place them outside the henhouse. She immediately takes that opportunity to visit the feeder and waterer while Eli and I sneakily release the nine chicks into the henhouse.
Breathlessly, Elaine, the grandsons and I wait by the coup’s back window to see if Charlotte will fall for our subterfuge. Nourished and refreshed, Charlotte enters the henhouse and discovers that instead of one fake egg in her nest, there now reside nine very vigorous chicks—a miracle of epic proportions if there ever was one.
Charlotte seems briefly confused about this stunning turn of events, but then gives each one of the chicks a hard peck on the head. And our next generation of chickens has officially come into existence.
The story above first appeared in our March / April 2024 issue.
