Yikes! You have one upset little Mama! I would move little mamas nest/eggs to a secluded area so that she can have them back and finish hatching her babies. You should always clean up any eggs that don't hatch-you do not want to have a problem with pests and possible disease from left over eggs. I would also move the other nest/eggs to another secluded spot also so that everybody will be happy-out of site out of mind sorta thing-new mama will take care of her babies and forget about the other nesters'. I have had that happen and have always just moved them and then everybody was happy--however, I don't think I will let that many set on eggs again :) I had one girl that just kept on taking the other girls nest/eggs even though she had her own babies---she would see the eggs and holler yippee,yippee more eggs!! :) So now I will only let one have eggs at a time!!

There are two methods that MAY work... although they are risky with that much difference in age between the chicks. Still, I successfully added a couple of chicks that were about five days younger than the others using what I like to call the "two for one" method. A kid thought this one up and his mother posted it on the forum a long time ago. One bright kid! Put the two orphaned chicks in a bucket (not a clear one) or similar container. Kidnap the hen's current babies and add them to the bucket. (A butterfly net works great for catching them.) The stolen chicks will set up a frantic peeping once they cannot see Mama... and Mama will fuss and scold and generally work herself up into a tizzy. The more upset she is, the better. When you get to the point when it looks like Mama's eyeballs will pop out of her head, lower the bucket and let out all four chicks. Typically Mama will be confused and know something is different, but will not be able to figure out what, since hens cannot count. And she is so relieved to have her babies back that she doesn't much care and accepts them all. But be ready to pull the younger chicks out if she starts hurting them. I've done this a few times and never had it fail. Hens are birdbrains. I THINK they can tell the difference between "one" and "more than one"... but not the difference between two and three or four. The more the chicks look alike, the better chance of success. The other method is the tried and true "wait until dark" method. You simply sneak them under her with her own when she is asleep and she assumes they are all hers when she wakes up. If it doesn't work, however, she may harm or kill the newcomers unless you are on the spot early to check on them. Forget the Vicks or other scent confusers. Chickens don't use scent to identify their young. They rely on sound and sight and situation. "They are under my wings so they must be mine." Good luck! And please post an update so we know how it turns out!

If you try again, put a few around the yard to see which do better in certain locations. I put mine in well drained, compost-rich soil that gets about 6 hours of afternoon sun/day, and in two years lost most of them.They just kept dying. I took the few that were left, put them in a 4" pot this spring, and I now have many more, and they are overflowing the pot. I kept the pot in a location that gets morning sun, dappled mid-day shade for a few hours, then total shade from about 3PM on, and watered only when I could remember to do so. I'll keep mine in containers from now on, in that back part of the yard. Beatrice

Hi Zach, I don’t know what you’ll think of this, but the first thing that came to mind when you asked for something to replace the Zauschneria is the perennial four O’clock, Mirabilis multiflora! Low and spreading, very similar to the way Callirhoe is “viney” and covers a large area without actually rooting in as it spreads. What’s the grass you have in that little rocked in area? If it’s a real short one the Mirabilis could possibly run it right over! If it’s taller, no problem I think! Here’s a thread I started a looong time ago asking for info and advice about it when I got one and found contradictory info! I still don’t have one (that lived!), but it’s still on my Must Have One Day list! As you can see on this thread, some people say it can spread up to 6’ or more! Because of the nature of the plant, I believe you could just trim the individual stems to shorten them if it started going Too Far! http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2129011/information-on-perennial-four-oclock-mirabilis-multiflora?n=21 Some places say it can be invasive, but I haven’t found any Colorado folks saying that! And I think it’s pretty enough to want to try it anyway! (Kind of like I did with the Z-Word!!!) I do believe it reseeds some—but I don’t believe it’s enough to be a nuisance! At the bottom of that thread Jali posted a couple pics of hers while they were still pretty small. Jali, if you see this, how are yours doing??? [Or did you move out of that house???] If Kiddo likes ‘Dragon’s Blood’, how about some other sedums for him? I can bring starts at the next swap—cuttings he can start for himself, for a real sense of accomplishment! Let me know which ones you already have! AND! How about some semps??? There is SO much variety in the size, shape, and color of these things that I am constantly amazed when I see new ones! I have a small yard so I just keep a “small patch” of all the different ones—I must have at least a couple dozen different ones by now! Can also bring “chicks” for some different varieties that he can start himself! [Instruction sheets for rooting sedums and starting hen & chicks included when I bring unrooted ones!] And then there’s the iceplants! Not sure if you have any of those yet or not! Some of the older varieties can get pretty straggly looking, and have a way of suddenly dying off big time, but the newer ones, Delosperma basuticum ‘White Nugget’ and ‘Gold Nugget’ spread slowly, stay nice and compact, and grow very densely. I give ‘White Nugget’ away at swaps—and will be giving ‘Gold Nugget’ (under a different name!) away probably by next year. Here are links to some olde threads where I posted real live pics of these things! Hen & chicks on this one! These are just a few of the first varieties I started at this house! http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2135209/hen-and-chicks-addiction?n=14 A “groundcover” thread, so more than just sedums, but a lot of sedum pics too—with ‘White Nugget’ right up on top! Don’t miss the sedum pics down near the bottom of the thread! Show them to Kiddo and see what he thinks of them! (When I was a kid and found out there were ALL kinds of sedums, I got REALLY interested in them!) http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2129058/need-help-selecting-a-groundcover-plant?n=16 And a few more sedum and iceplant pics—some of these could be the same as on the first thread! I love the way the sedums and the hen & chicks “change color” in winter and spring! Also, since the semps and iceplants, and almost all of the sedums are evergreen, it keeps “something” out there to look at over winter when most of the perennials “go away!” Even with my one deciduous sedum, if I get it cut back early enough it starts to grow the “rosettes” for the next year, and they’re out there all winter too! http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2130716/groundcover-advice?n=10 It seems to me that little patches of different sedums/semps/iceplants would look really good here and there in your garden—and Kiddo could have his very own things to take care of! [I LOVE to get kids interested in gardening!] I don’t know if this makes any difference to you, but I don’t like to “walk all over the soil” in my perennial beds, so as soon as I started putting things in I “installed” some small pieces of flagstone for “stepping stones.” I can reach almost everything from one of the stepping stones, and that way I’m “standing in the same place” whenever I’m working out there, and not trampling the soil down all over the place. And since I have “rocks” here, there, and everywhere (many of which—the smaller ones!—I’ve collected when I was out trippin’!), the flagstone blends right in with the “overall look” of it! Your bed is large enough that you could kind of put a couple little “paths” through it—with the stepping stones spaced fairly far apart! If you go down to the “whole garden” pic near the bottom of the second linked semp/sedum thread, between the “bonsai’d honeysuckle bush” and the hydrangea, you can see the little pieces of flagstone here and there in that bed! (No “small” rocks in that pic! It was taken in ’08, the year I started Trippin’ In Earnest! There are LOTS of “rocks” out there now, and in the last couple years I’ve started working on collecting Rocky Mountain Driftwood!) I’m not sure about this, but I don’t think the squirrels will do much damage to the Helianthus! The stems, unlike annual sunflowers, are very thin, and I don’t think they could climb up enough to get to the flowers! But if they do try, they just might “drag” the whole top of the plant down! DUH! Just thought of this! NO squirrel problems! H. m. seed is small—closer to Echinacea seed! Completely different from the annual sunflowers! Do you have a blue fescue? The center of mine—‘Elijah’s Blue’, the “best” one IMO—has completely died out and I’m gonna need to dig, divide, and replant it, and will very possibly have some starts at one of the next couple swaps! Just don’t know when I’ll get it done! Aren’t there “codes” in whatever city you live in that allow you to get The House taken care of so it’s not a Public Nuisance? When you said it was empty I assumed it had been foreclosed—like the Weed Lot Public Nuisance right behind me—which is lived in again—but is STILL a WEED LOT Public Nuisance. I haven’t called Code Enforcement again since the “new folks” moved in, but my whole lot is an insane maze, now, of every kind of milkweed you can imagine—and a bunch more I never even knew existed! If they let it get over the limit (I think it was 8” high) next spring again, I AM gonna call Code Enforcement back—even with them living there now! Broken windows, wildlife living in the building, plants growing into the building!!! That all sounds like stuff that would be prohibited by city codes—almost anywhere! You should go to your city’s site and check it out. I found the info I needed pretty easily on the Thornton site! Gotta go, Skybird P.S. I’ve talked to Barb about the possibility of going to Rocky Mountain Arsenal for a bird watching expedition with you some day (idea originally from the bird thread!) and maybe if we do that we’ll just invite ourselves down to your house for a weenie roast and garden tour after the bird watching!