Brave hen hatches 12 tornado-surviving eggs near Belleville

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That brave chicken who lives in Norman Wilke's barn is a mother.

A tornado blew the roof off barn and sheared off the walls June 8, but the determined hen didn't leave her nest filled with 16 eggs.

"It's amazing that she wasn't sucked away," Wilke said. "She had to have really held on there."

On Tuesday, 12 chicks cracked through their shells and came into the world, Wilke said. One later died.

"I went out there to feed her and a couple were out," Wilke said. "They were all out."

The hen's nest is wedged between two wood studs near the barn's staircase. After their birth, the chicks dealt with another weather worry -- the heat.

"I got them downstairs to keep them out of the heat some," Wilke said.

The chicken gained public attention after she appeared in a News-Democrat story about tornado cleanup.

"You wouldn't believe how many people ask me about her," Wilke said.

Wilke continues to repair damage from this month's twister to his home's roof, farm fence and big red barn on Shiloh Station Road near Belleville.

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