Tales from the chicken yard

Everyday I wander into the chicken pen to check on the health and well being of my flock. check their water and food and just to watch them, chickens can be quite entertaining!!!

So, welcome Dear Readers, welcome to the tales from the chicken yard.......

 One of our white crested black polish hens is a bit deformed while this does not seem to affect her in a physical way, she is the most affectionate chicken out of the flock.  Whenever I enter the chicken yard she runs up to me clucking away (I like to think that she is telling me all about her day) and continues to follow me around just making as much noise as she can.  A few days ago she decided that it would be much easier to "talk" to me if she rode around on my shoe.. she just climbs up on my croc and hooks her little claws in the holes and goes for a little "ride" all the while clucking away.  This gal makes me smile.

Our second tale stars our Silver-laces Wyndotte cockerel, who sadly is becoming a bit mean in his quest for dominance.  Tuesday evening the hubs and I were out checking on the poultry yards, when we here a bit of loud squawking and a bit of carrying on going on in so we wander over to discover that the Wyandotte male is attacking any chicken who happens by.. we toss a rock his way and he released the female he had by the neck, she is bloody so I go in, to check her and wipe up the blood, so an not to provoke more pecking and discover several other ladies with deep gashes on their necks.  Now, I know that this behavior is a natural occurrence in striving for a pecking order and mating ect..  however none of the other males seem to be as rough or mean with the ladies, he is not new to the flock all these chickens have been together since they first arrived in a cardboard box I assumed that the pecking order had long been established.  While we were standing there this behavior continued for quite sometime, long enough that the hubs went in to get him, meaning scare the crap out of this upstart.... hubs chased him into the silo and was going to separate him out for a bit to calm him down, but then hubs saw what he thought might be an egg, but couldn't reach it through the small openings in the silo, so he reached in with a broom trying to brush it towards the door, well the cockerel thought he was coming for him with that broom and flew out in our faces que a bit of a scream from me and much ducking.  It did seem to calm him down a bit and now he runs away from my hubs any time he sees him. 

The third and final tale from the chicken yard...
This evening when hubs got home from work, he let the dogs out as per usual, and straight away they started barking and carrying on, he calls to them, they continue barking, he steps out on the porch and watches and Rasputin jumps all around barking.. so he goes out to investigate and finds that one of the crevocour ladies has flown the coop (literally) and the dogs were barking at her because she was not where she belonged.  She had in fact wandered quite far from the coop and pen area, so hubs scooped her up and took her back to the pen where all the other chickens gathered around to hear her tale.

well that's all for now folks, check back soon and have a good evening.