And we thought that a roving band of chickens in our neighbourhood was unusual...

So by now, you've probably heard about the "roving band" of neighbourhood chickens that visit our front porch regularly. On Saturday afternoon, Glen and I were sitting on the front porch enjoying the afternoon sun. Jasmine was very restless and wouldn’t settle down – we asked her to lie down, she would, but shortly after would get up and look at the ground below the porch through the metal fence.

After a bit of this, Glen looked down to see what she was looking at and below was one of our neighbourhood chickens. But she was not alone...there were 4 baby chicks beside her!

After recovering from the shock of seeing the chicks, we watched for awhile and eventually counted 8 chicks darting in and out from underneath our neighbourhood hen. We looked again a bit later and saw 11. As of yesterday afternoon, we have a mother hen with 15 chicks living underneath the shrubbery on the front of the house.

They are hungry boys and girls. Typical scenario: we put 2 cups of food down near them and within an hour it is gone! This morning Glen bought a 50 lb bag of chick food, and at this rate, it should be gone in no time.