Mother hen

Of the three broody hens that were sitting a while back, one managed to hatch four chicks and is now happily raising these tiny feathery tufts in our enclosed orchard. Isn't she beautiful? She has super-powerful legs for kicking up dirt and digging huge holes under the apple trees, teaching her charges to forage for food. It's our second batch of chicks for this season, both hatched and raised by hens. For once we haven't used the incubator. Unfortunately, from the first batch of five that are now 14 weeks old, four are male. Over the years we've had pretty bad luck with the hen-to-cockerel ratio. I'm crossing my fingers that we get at least a couple of girls this time. P.S. Anyone want a nice young Barnevelder rooster?