Martin had been keeping his eyes on a clutch of eggs in the barn. When we were working on the door, Martin found the eggs were all cracked.
I told him to look for the chicks, because maybe they had hatched (or eaten by a critter).
It didn’t take him long to find the mother and the chicks, in this case a Buff Orpington hen and five chicks. Finding a “free range” mother hen and chicks is like a combination of Santa’s presents and finding a 20 dollar bill on the street. It sure beats keeping motherless chicks under a brooder.