The past month has been quite a learning experience for us. We were quite amused when Ralph, the local kingpin Rooster, …

… started bringing his mates over to a large plant pot in our garden, on the edge of our deck. Two different hens jumped up and laid eggs in the pot.

After the first four, we thought, “how convenient”, collected them and made a lovely omelet. However, they were undeterred. We think that only one hen returned and then proceeded to lay 11 eggs in the plant pot. At one egg per day, that took, well, 11 days. For some reason, it seemed very odd that the eggs were just left there in the heat for that long. I suppose they were perfectly safe.

Finally, the hen stopped laying and started to ‘brood’. She popped out every day for a bit of water and some food, but otherwise spent 23 1/2 hours sitting on those eggs.

After about 21 days, we heard some peeping and noticed that the hatching had begun.

Over the next two days, more and more hatched.

Finally, they were all hatched. We watched for a few minutes while the chicks all ran around the pot.

Then, suddenly the mom jumped out of the pot. The chicks immediately started to follow.

One last chick remained and then she too was gone.

We got to see what a real empty nest looks like. Well, it’s a bit messy!