Hen Nurtures Kittens, May 7th 1903
Stories of interspecies adoption of motherless creatures are abundant. Despite their prevalence, these cases never fail to warm the hearts of their human observers. However, there is another form of interspecies adoption which is far more humorous (though less often reported). This peculiar phenomenon -as observed by a farmer in Littleton, Illinois in the year 1903- involves the attempted interspecies adoptions of creatures whose mothers are still very much in the picture. The following article was published in the May 7th, 1903 edition of the Rushville Times newspaper in Rushville, Illinois: Hen Nurtures Kittens A strange story of misplaced motherly affection comes from Littleton Township, but while it is strange it is true. At the farm of Frank Grafton a hen had a nest in a straw stack, but each day the egg she laid was taken away and when she wanted to eat her nest was broken up. It was then that the hen decided to adopt a family and transferred her motherly affection to a litter o