chicks?!

We did not buy these.  We found them!  It is still somewhat of  a mystery to us as to how this came about.  I think I have figured out the parentage since I found a nest littered with white egg shells, feathers from a silver spangled hamburg, and THIS STUDY.  It takes 21 days to hatch a chick at 99 degrees.  I don't know who's been sitting on this nest but it just might have been one of the hamburg hens we thought we lost earlier this summer.  We know our brown leghorn rooster was taken about a week ago.  The fox (?) may have gotten the hen who was sitting on these eggs and they must have finished incubating in the recent heatwave because other than the feathers that line her nest, there is no trace of her!  This explains why these chicks were wandering alone in the yard when we found them...no mother.  Poor things.  It will be interesting to see what they look like when they feather out.  Anyway - if you've read this far, maybe you know something about chickens and can confirm my explanation of this mystery.

Our hens, which I count every evening when I lock them up, have consisted for the last several weeks of 1 Black Australorp and 2 Black Stars which lay extra large brown eggs; 4 Brown Leghorns, which lay large white eggs; 3 Silver Spangled Hamburgs, which lay small white eggs; 2 Easter Eggers, which lay green eggs; and 1 Lakenvelder, which lays medium white eggs.  Since they weren't sitting on a nest, none of them could be the mother...and none of our missing hens have re-appeared.