Oh No Not Again!

Chicks were something that I hadn't really thought about, however, when we found one of the feral chickens and some chicks in a cactus in the barranco one day it was rather exciting. We pondered what to do with these small creatures and their obviously stupid mother, and knew that  we had to get them back to the finca.

We carefully transported mum and babies back home, and released them into what I considered to be a secure pen.Now yet again I am no chicken expert and was seriously confused what to do with these small but rather cute creatures..off to Google I went, and returned with knowledge about food, water and comfort...

The next morning I returned to my new mum and babies to discover they were dead..this was the first moment since arriving that farm life was not fun. Unfortunately my children consider me to be the animal whisperer and an expert on every animal in the world...I would like to clarify that I am not and spend a huge amount of time, saying "I just don't know"

Back to Google and it seems that chicks do just die, this made me feel slightly better, but I was still upset by the fact that these fragile little chicks "just die" rapidly after this we found another mum and babies, and another, and another, and another. One was 80ft up a mountain, another was on the roof...these chickens really are dumb!

We rapidly had to build a maternity wing for our new born chicks and their mums and learnt along the way what we could do with them and what was not good. Some have died, however, more have survived and we now have far too many chicks!! At one time it was exciting to find a batch of little chicks, now we simply groan and say "oh no not again"