Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Our broody chickens all continue to do a fabulous job. At the moment we have no less than five who between them are looking after 27 chicks. The first and third photos are of the bantam and Light Sussex birds who hatched out the Orpington chicks back on 28th May. All 12 are growing really fast. Orpingtons are big fluffy chickens that have a reputation for being friendly and easy to care for and because of this they are often recommended to first time chicken owners. The chicks all sleep in the same big nestbox with their 'mums' and during the day are usually to be found wandering around as one big group. We think this is because the adult broodies shared the same nestbox when they were sitting on the eggs, rather than because they are the same breed of chicken!!
In the middle we have our lovely light golden bantam with her 'wobbly' chick and hiding underneath are the four new chicks we gave her on 15th of this month. Can you see the stripy head of one of the Legbars? This is another story of sharing because the bantam and her older chick seem to be sharing the job of looking after these four. At times we find that two chicks are keeping warm under the bantam and the other two are under the larger white chick. We encouraged them to go outside today and were delighted to see how well our wobbly chick coped. She is now able to walk/wobble quite a few steps, often using her wings to help her balance and if she falls over she is pretty much always able to get herself back on her feet again!
Chickens are sociable creatures as these two examples show - in addition they are very adaptable. Whilst it is 'normal' for one chicken to bring up one brood, our birds have 'adapted' to the situation/environment they have found themselves in and shown themselves to be happy to share. Will this affect the characters of the chicks themselves? Who knows??