Thursday, July 7, 2011

Come here Red...



Life before chickens. A hawk or an eagle flies over and you think, "How majestic". Today a bird of prey does a fly by and you become uber vigilant. The last few days have found me thinking how neat it would be to have just a couple of chickens. You know, I could keep an eye on them as we weed together.

Well, Red has been keeping me company because she has become the object of some pretty mean treatment from the pack. They won't let her into the yard leaving her to hang in the coop. When she does venture out she puffs up as big as she can and she still gets a sustained 'peck' (read bite) from the little martinette that seems to be running the show these days.

So I take her out with me where she gluts on worms, (where the others can see), raspberries, currants, strawberries, seeds, whatever.

Now I've read that the way to deal is to remove the agressor for a couple days and then duly knocked down a peg or three it will behave. However in this case the top hen has her nasty gang of thuggy underlings that also do her bidding when I have removed the instigator. And, of course, it goes without saying that Red is my favorite and if a chicken can be sweet Red qualifies.

Anyway, maybe they're all cranky because they can no longer free range. Once the veg gardens are done I'll let them in there but free ranging here is a gamble one is bound to lose to foxes so confined they must be for the majority of their days.

So yeah, one or two novelty chickens would be smashing except I keep thinking about that line at the end of, I think, Annie Hall..."I need the eggs".




2 comments:

El said...

Doesn't she look intimidating!

I had the opposite thing going on for years: my top chicken was my gardening friend. As long as she didn't scratch things up (a hard thing to maintain) Queen (Bloody) Beatrice was my gardening companion. Alas, she's no longer, and I miss her.

I don't know what to tell you about your gang of Mean Girls though. I haven't really completely experienced it: usually someone is mean until she isn't or someone is pecked until she isn't. I do consider their Happy Hour (5-dusk) to be a considerable pressure relief valve for the flock but I also have a 7' high fence running around the entirety of my garden...to keep them out, of course. :)

randi said...

drool..7' high fence...drool