First spring arrivals!!

Well, we started this winter with 8 chickens, two roosters and 6 hens. About a month ago we noticed that we only had 5 hens running around. When we didn't see her for a full week, we decided that she had fallen to one of the many predators around. Yesterday, Eric was doing some yard work and came upon the hen with a bunch of little chicks!! She had sat on ten eggs and hatched 6 of them, through several winter storms, too! He estimates that they are only a few days old.We were going to try and let her raise them free range, but Ollie (one of our great orange hunting cats) thought they would make a nice snack. So Eric chased the hen and the chicks through a wood pile and finally caught all of them and put them in a make-shift cage for a little while. We figure that she hadn't eaten the whole time she was sitting, because once she was in the cage, she ate for a solid hour :) Mom and chicks are doing well. Hopefully we'll have pictures up soon.