Chickens Part Two

O.K. Brain, when I left off last post I had chicken fever, incurable chicken fever.

Behind the counter at The Feed Store in Georgetown Texas (where else?!). 

I went to feed supply stores to find chicken food and instead I found chickens.  All different kinds of chickens.  I never knew so many chickens existed.  I fell completely in love the Cochins when I saw them at Callahan's one Saturday.  Cochins are chickens that have feathers all down their feet and legs.  This makes it look like they are wearing little feather bell bottoms.  I had to have some.

Meanwhile my three girls were living high on the hog.  They had graduated from their tractor to just free-ranging in the back yard.  By dint of determination and a powerful squirt bottle I even managed to train my cat, Five, not to chase the chickens (much).  Instead, Five now enjoys perching atop the chicken's tractor, or any other conveniently elevated object, and observing chicken antics in a purely supervisory capacity.  I was getting three eggs (one green, two brown) faithfully, every day and I was paying for them with groceries.  I became obsessed with offering my girls treats.  I loved making up big bowls of salad for them, trying new tidbits all the time; kale fresh from the garden, bananas, sweet potatoes, sausage (to B's horror) tomatoes from the garden...  The chickens were eating better than B and I were.  I realized I had to reign myself in a bit when I caught myself ordering an extra side of Basmati rice from my favorite Indian take out place (Tarka of course!) just for the chickens!  They love Tarka's Basmati rice almost as much as they love meal worms (I'm not sure what that says about Tarka's rice  actually, but it doesn't matter, Tarka's rice could be made of meal worms and I would still eat it, its that good), but ordering take out for the chickens is too much even for me.  I figured since I seemed to be doing a pretty good job treating my experimental chickens like queens and spoiling them outrageously, it was time to expand the flock.

I drove back out to the chicken ranch to pick up two more chickens.  This time I went solo and remembered to bring a box in which to transport the new girls.  April (the kindly chicken lady with the sign on her barn that read, "W.W.J.C. (Johnny Cash) Do?" whose answering service played "Ring Of Fire"  for callers while they waited for her to answer) warned me that since she was moving her chicken operation she didn't have many chickens for sale, but she said she did have Cochins so I was happy to make the trip.  I planned to get a Black Cochin and maybe a Brabanter (a heritage breed that lays blue eggs).  In fact, I got three Cochins, a white one I named Camilla after Gonzo's lady love, another one who was just big ball of puffy blue feathers, whom I named Verruca Salt (Verruca for short), and a black and white speckled girl I called Iskra.  I ALSO bought a Brabanter who I named Fingers.

Iskra, the sweetheart.

Camilla, the pretty one.

Fingers, the troublemaker.

Veruca, the other OTHER new chicken

I casually didn't mention how badly I'd over done it on chickens to B.  He's fairly indifferent to the chickens (he doesn't call them by name he calls them, Nice Chicken, Not Nice Chicken and Other Chicken) so I thought he might not even notice the two extra at all.  Well, he did notice right away, I think because he planned to call them New Chicken and Other New Chicken and he realized that something was awry when he discovered there was also New Chicken That Looks Like a Roadrunner, and Other Other New Chicken.  My goose was cooked- so to speak.*  Still, the new little chicks were so cute, B didn't fuss much.  I got off pretty lightly, with just a couple big sighs and some eye rolling.  I think he knew it was sort of inevitable, and he picks his battles.  If I had come home with a burro or a couple of geese like I'm always trying to do, it might have been a different story.

I was not really prepared for chicks as young as the ones April had available, but I was not willing to wait or make a second trip, I was on fire with the desire for new chickens!  I had planned to keep the new chickens separately penned for a week or so to let everyone settle in and get the older girls used to the newer girls slowly.  I hoped this would prevent excessive bullying.  But the new babies were SO tiny I realized I'd have to keep them separated for much longer than a measly week.  I also realized belatedly, that feeding and caring for two sets of chickens was a great deal of work.  Just shepherding them about and making sure the big ones didn't accidentally get in with the little ones was a full time job.  Fingers in particular proved to be excellent at finding ways in to the big chicken pen.  She was not even entirely dissuaded by the serious and bloody pecking she took at their beaks (or maybe, being a chicken, she was unable to recall it a mere 30 seconds later).  Luckily, I was outside when Fingers wiggled over into the big pen and the older girls went after her.  I dashed to the coop, alerted by her terrified cheeps for help.  When I got to her two of the older girls were pecking her mercilessly, she had her little head pushed as far under the straw as she could, but there had been damage done, her little neck was bloody.

I put Fingers back in with the other babies and set about fixing the hole she had used to get into the big pen.  That is when I discovered that chickens will peck at anything that bleeds.  All of sudden the other three, formerly sweet, innocent little poof balls converged on Fingers and pecked at her bloody neck!  I hastily scooped Fingers up and completed my repairs one handed while holding the terrified creature against my chest.  Then I took her in the house, cleaned up her cuts and put a little bit of Neosporin on them with a Que Tip.  Finally I fixed up the cat carrier with strips of news paper and some water in a spill proof dish and left her in the dark bathroom overnight to rest and recuperate.   In the morning she was fine, back to her old cheeky self, so I put her back with the rest of the little ones and that was the end of it.  Except the adventure seemed to have given her a bit of a swagger.  I imagined she played the whole thing up greatly when she told the other three about her adventures inside the big house.

Well Brain, the hour grows late.  I think I will wrap this post up for now.  I will have to finish up in a third post dedicated solely to chickens, if you can stand another one.  For now I will leave you with a picture of Crrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyzzzzzzzeeeeeeeee Zoe, and a pic of the kitten acting in a purely supervisory capacity.

Insane in the membrane.

Five supervises.

*Lucky for B I did not come home with any geese.  I have always wanted to have geese and its all I can handle to wait until we move somewhere with a little more space like B has asked me to do.