By far my favorite animal family on the farm right now… Charlie The Chocolate Chicken Factory, his wife Sugar Mama, and the four babies they recently hatched.
11 interesting facts about Charlie The Chocolate Chicken Factory and his wife Sugar Mama:
1) They are both purebred Chocolate Orpingtons, and are the basis of our breeding program.
2) Charlie is incredibly huge, the size of some turkeys.
3) Despite his enormous size, Charlie is one of the friendliest roosters on the farm. He is always excited to see his humans, loves being picked up, loves kisses, and will laugh loudly when tickled under his wings.
4) Charlie is a proud and very involved father. He was so excited when his wife decided to hatch her own eggs. As hatch day approached, he scratched out a spot in the dirt within her direct line of sight so he could sit and watch her all day. He loves taking any human newcomers to show off his wife and kids.
5) Charlie loves providing for his family. Despite the fact that he has a full feeder, I always toss him a handful of feed in the mornings so he can scratch it up and take it to go feed his family, which he is always so excited to do.
6) Sugar Mama is probably a third of Charlie’s size but they make the perfect pair. She is super sweet and attentive to her children.
7) Sugar Mama picks up the feed pellets and breaks them into pieces with her beak so they can digest them better. I’ve never seen chickens do this before.
8) When she isn’t laying down letting her babies sleep in her feathers, she is leading them around the pen teaching them various life lessons. She has taught them how to forage, which grasses are edible, which fences are safe to go through, and many more valuable facts of life. She is extremely attentive and stays completely focused on her babies every waking second of every day.
9) Sugar Mama has four chicks because she decided that’s how many she wanted. After she got four, she destroyed the remaining eggs and removed them from her nest. It is amazing to see the amount of thought and planning she has put into starting a family.
10) While we do incubate most of our bird babies, we highly encourage broody mothers. Any female bird that wants to hatch eggs is given full freedom to do so and we will not remove eggs from a bird that is trying to hatch them.
11) We try to sell incubated babies shortly after hatching but if a mama hatches her own babies we will wait until she has finished raising them before rehoming them. As a general principle we believe mama-raised animals always make the best animals.
If interested in buying Chocolate Orpington chickens or any of the other animals we raise (see sidebar), please contact us at middleforkfarmsal@gmail.com.
Middle Fork Farms 