twick or tweet

One of my granddaughter's favorite jokes is the one that starts " A duck walks into a bar...."  We tell it now this way:  Buck walks into a bar and says to the bartender "Got any Gwapes?"
" No we don't have any grapes, and even if we did, you're a chicken, and we don't allow chickens in the bar.  You have to leave".
Buck leaves, but comes back in a few days and goes into the bar again,  goes up to the bar and says to the bartender-
"Got any gwapes?"
"No, dammit, I already told you, we don't have grapes, and we don't serve chickens, if you come back here again, I'm going to nail your beak to the bar."
So Buck leaves, downcast.
A week later, he comes back, walks into the bar, hops up on the counter and asks the bartender -
" Got any nails?"
"No" he answers " I do not have any nails!"
"Got any gwapes?"
This has come up to the status of a bedtime story, and I hear her telling it to other people with added variations of her own.
I'm thinking I might have to put out a bowl of grapes and seafood delight on Hallowe'en because the only visitors I'm likely to have way off the main candy route is a flock of visitors from another galaxy disguised as chickens.

Chickens in the Snow.

We are having our first Nor'Easter, it is as unwelcome to the chickens as to me.
If I really minded snow, I mean to the depths one must need to mind snow, I would go somewhere less pale for the winter.  Venezuela, maybe.
After about an inch of heavy snow and it being dusk, the chickens decided to roost wedged up against the house in a pile hoping to rush inside if the door opened.  They resisted all suggestions to go where there was shelter, food water and a nice place to sleep.
I'm having the floors refinished this week [note to self;  Next time, do this in the summer.] so all my stuff is either on the porch or the deck.  The chickens have gotten their wish, to roost on my furniture.  Becky & Barbie were perched on and befouling my turntable, so they were easily nabbed.
 Buck would have to be next.
I took advantage of how mellow he's been lately to get close enough to grab him and pin him under my arm like a handbag.  He looked sorry to have been so easily deceived, but happily jumped into the coop with Becky and Barbie. They were not as happy to be sharing a coop with the established chickens, and though they have been flocking during the day, how they get along through the storm will tell me more.
Bette, Stella, Feather and Pearl were snatched in unresisting pairs.  I'm not sure they're easier to corner with Buck out of the way, not getting all bent out of shape when they squawk, trying to help or express himself.  At least it's one less element to deal with.
 Bibs is still in the shed, she is growing feathers back, and I'd like to keep it that way.  She was the best at hiding, I found her crouched silently under a low bush that was the same color as she and only catchable by persuading her to jump up on a tarp covered object, making it possible to grab her as she slid back down.  I have found that when I catch a chicken, if I hold their feet underneath them,the way you do a cat, they calm right down.
Buck's recent pacifism doesn't extend to the guys who are refinishing the floor.  They reported to me that Buck seemed really friendly, watching them all day lounging just outside the door.  Then he went after their calves with an enthusiastic beak as soon as their backs were turned.

Stupidity is a Mother.

That stupid electric door, or the stupid timer, or the stupid person who can't figure out how to get the thing to work reliably is putting my chickens at risk.
The Omega chicken of the bridge club, Pearl, the non-conformist, the dreamer was the only one in the coop last night as I went to do a beak check.  The door had closed shutting everyone else out.
The shed contained the B girls and Buck.  Buck had muscled the ground hen, Bibs out of the favorite cat carrier and was hunkered down inside it giving me the eye.
"What're you looking at.  Never seen a chicken before?"
I had no flashlight and just assumed that the others, Bette the Alpha, Feather and Stella the inseparables, had followed Buck and were roosting in there as well.
This morning, I approached the shed to the sounds of arguing.  The B's were trying to figure out how in the hell that big damned rooster got in there, and Buck was attempting to charm them.  Well -  What passes for charm in Buck's mind.  Looks more like frottage and innuendo to me.
Anyhow, I let them out, crouching out of the way to avoid the flying feathered bodies of hens let loose as though shot from a cannon.
Buck strutted out looked at me.
 "What."  he said.
From under the house across the yard came running and flapping  the alphas who  had something to say to Buck.  Buck circled them dropped a wing, stomped on the ground and life went on as usual.
Bibs is getting tiny little golden feathers.
I still want to keep her separated from everyone at night until she looks less like a target and more like a chicken.
They are all  hanging out  more without needing 50' in between the two groups at all times.
I'm hoping that in another few weeks they might happily share a perch, but I have heard from several people that some groups of chickens just never learn to like each other.

Coming Home to Roost....

The missing hen, Bibs, has turned up, and she is in one piece, but still no back feathers.  This morning, I let the hens out, and there she was.  She must have turned up yesterday late afternoon and slipped in to the coop with the other B-list girls, so wherever she had gone to hide, was a good place, and she kept her beak shut.
 I was unable to find her after searching, making clucking noises, qwa,qwa noises and spreading treats around.
This means I'm still on chicken therapy duty, trying to keep her from getting destroyed by her place in the social order.  She does have a few tricks of her own up her sleeve, I guess.
The leaves are 1/2 down, and I notice that everyone is a little more nervous about their aerial visibility, jumpy at the sound of a blue jay and hanging out under cars or decks more than usual for a fair weather day.
I'm thinking of putting together a small hoop set up to give them a protected place to be in the winter.  This isn't entirely benevolence, I want them to be able to get fresh air  without my life being about shoveling out square footage for chickens.
I'm more convinced than ever that the pretty hens I've acquired are menopausal, not that I care about eggs so much, but it does mean that they won't reproduce  in the spring.
 It could just be that they're taking an incredibly long time to feel that the accommodations are up to snuff and that it's safe for them to drop eggs.  It hardly  matters since Buck takes a look at them and says "Nothing doing".
They're pretty, though, and they still eat ticks.

Chicken Down

Last night I picked a friend up at the train station with time enough to get home and make sure the chickens were safe.
Maybe the wind blew the little chicken door closed.  There was a closed and empty coop.  I checked on the new girls in the shed by asking them if they were roosting, and got a couple of muttered replies, so I knew someone was in there anyway.
I thought the answered clucking I heard  sounded wrong for the new voices.   When I came back with the flashlight I got more response -
"Get that light out of my beak, I'm trying to sleep you idiot!"
Buck and the girls were lined up on the sawhorse with Becky and Barbie on the perch above them and no sign of Bibs.  I thought she was probably in one of the nesting boxes, as she prefers to stay close to the ground.
She was with everyone when I left a couple of hours earlier so I figure one of two things happened.
She didn't dare go into the shed with the Alpha chickens or she was grabbed by some hungry sanctuary dweller before bedtime.
It was good to see that everyone could be in one place without squabbling but it was not good to have lost a chicken.
 No sign of her today either.
Tonight, at dusk, I was in the kitchen, and Buck came to the door.  This was new.  He looked at me as though he hoped he could get me to have a clue.
 I thought maybe he was lobbying for snacks but when I came out with lettuce, he was heading for the chicken house, calling his hens to follow.
 I know it's anthropomorphic to think he was telling me that they were about to roost, and would I please come and close the door properly or make sure they could get into the coop,  but being anthropomorphic has never bothered me before.
What should bother me is the feeling that I'm being managed by a chicken.

If you wait long enough

A reason or purpose might emerge for almost everything that was judged as a failure too early on.
The B's love to hang around the lower branches of a peach tree that I cut down a couple of years ago because it was a nuisance and dropped bitter little peaches everywhere that only the chipmunks were interested in.
The tree took advantage of a 2 year period of time in which I was too lame to do any yard work to grow back, hydra fashion with 9 peach trees where there had been only one.

If I had been able to stand up long enough and if it had been a priority, I would have cut the thing down a few more times, but because I was unable to, there are 3 chickens who have claimed it for their own, and feel sheltered, happy and safe there.  I could not have foreseen this.
I'm certain there are many other things I complain about that resolve into grace over time.  Trouble might be that it's over geological or galactic time, and I don't get to see the end of the story.
There might be some dinosaur in the spirit world thinking the same thing.
"Who would've thought we'd turn into chickens!"  She's saying to herself.

Chicken on a String

I was cruising through youtube videos the other day looking for more variations on the chicken dance.  I was reminded of the story of Nasruddin in the market.  He sees a bag of potatoes, and picks one up, bites into it, howls in pain.  He has broken a tooth on what was a rock, not a potato.  He reaches in to the bag again, takes another, and bites into it, howls in pain, drops the rock a second time.  After repeating this, the bemused passerby asks " Why do you keep doing that?"
"I was hoping to find a good one".  says Nasruddin.
There are many videos of the Chicken Dance, done many ways, and most of them are just annoying.  Some are silly enough, but I guess the thing is, it is still the Chicken Dance, no matter how you film it.
My chickens are considerably more graceful and charming than any human   pretending to be a chicken - you will never see a chicken pretending to be a human - and then of course there's the surreal world of Lawrence Welk.
Amid this video search came up other topics, I liked the chickens breaking up an argument between rabbits - see "Chicken Police", I liked the two young men playing banjo and fiddle while chickens roamed around in time but there were plenty of disturbing things out there too.
I have seen people with pet chickens who are accustomed to a gentle leash designed to restrain but not hurt them, but there was some guy out there, who so reminded me of some of the creepier guys I've known who had his chicken on a string and jerked her around in a way that he seemed to think was funny and cute.  The hen didn't care for it.  She gave up struggling soon, and acted in a way that I could only describe as sad and hopeless.  She kept trying to make herself small and invisible, and he kept yanking the string.  I didn't watch all of it, but I felt very church-lady-ish as I left my opinion on the site.  I was at least hopeful to see that in the dislikes/likes category, the dislikes far outweighed the likes.
Another was a man who decided his chicken should learn how to swim in the pool and was surprised to find that the chicken caught pneumonia and died a week or so later.  He responded to people's suggestions that there was a connection between throwing a chicken in a pool and a fatal respiratory infection with surprise and confusion.
We as a culture raise animals by the millions in conditions we don't want to know about, slaughter them as though they were weeds and ship them off into a soulless food distribution machine by the ton.
We treat our companion animals with more care than we treat our children.
Is anyone surprised that with such distortions the world is in trouble?
I have entered this sharing space with chickens world with unconscionable unconsciousness.  I can tell myself I'm doing my best, but time will tell.  Aside from books and serendipity, there's not much information out there about chicken welfare.  Cows we get.  Cows are mammals.  Chickens are an alien species, not like us, but if you spend any time around them, you can see they are very much like us.  They have social relationships, needs for comfort, safety and sustenance.  They are curious and oddly trusting.  Buck has been here for only 4 months, and in that time has gone from being a really aggressive rooster to more of a pacifist.  All it took was safety and the chicken equivalent of cookies.

Phantom Chicken

Chickens in their dreambodies

float through the kitchen

imagining they live in a palace 

where all the food 

is locked behind metal doors

Evil Chicken!

"Buckie"

Before my 6 year old granddaughter, Ingrid understood that you can't outrun a chicken, she got the bad end of an encounter.
Buck hadn't been here very long, and was still highly sensitive to the slightest disturbance in the Wa.
That is, it took the tiniest perception of encroaching life forms other than himself or his ladies to set him off.  One day when Ingrid was coming to the house from the RV that her parents were working on refurbishing, Buck came after her and he was really putting his back into it.  In her attempts at escape, she tripped and fell into the garden.  He set upon her, and began pecking at her head.  He was prevented from doing any damage, Cayce picked him up and removed him from the area.
 Ingrid was way less traumatized than I thought she should have been or than any of the rest of us were, but she was after all born in the year of the chicken.
For a week afterwards, he was lurking just behind every door or bush when she went out, hoping for the opportunity to finish what he had started. Ingrid would periodically announce "Evil Chicken!!"
A couple of days ago, I heard that Buck's previous landlord actively disliked him, was possibly mean to him and so he went from being a normally aggressive rooster to taking a scunner against one particular man.  The problem with this, the problem that chickens and other animals don't seem to be able to grasp is that humans, when annoyed or inconvenienced, kill.
 In the early days, I could make my hand into a claw, crouch slightly and announce " No Chasing!"  He would back away and stomp off muttering "Grraahh buh worrah worrah...", but one day he decided to take me up on it and went after my hand.  That was when I instituted the policy of always having a branch nearby to place in between us, making it not worth his while to attack.

Today, there was something different.  I am probably premature or excessively optimistic but it seems that Buck hasn't so much as tried to destroy a shoe for over a week.  He still stands at a distance that feels like boundary violation of my personal space and with decisive briskness tears up whatever vegetation is nearby; not much, they've chewed up most of it - or picks up small twigs and tosses them into the air.  I have come to understand this as a polite request for cat food or other treats.
 It seems that even Buck can be made complacent about politics when he has a full belly and a warm place to sleep.  I expect next to come home and find that the remote is missing.  Anyhow, evil chicken or not, he is still so far, very much a live chicken.

Chicken rehab

This is not celebrity rehab.  My chickens are not getting high off mushrooms in the yard or fermented corn or unharvested illegal herbs. No, this is rehabilitation in the sense of getting the Omega hen to heal up enough so that I can let her take the air a bit.
She has scabbed over nicely, no apparent infection, so I carefully opened the cage with one hand, the other ready to prevent the rush that surprised me last time.
How does a chicken go from looking like a lump of feathers to propelling herself with instant top speed with no warning?  She's refused food and water for two days.   I got her out of the cage, calmed her down, and inflicted a further indignity by maneuvering her into a "chicken saddle".  Yes, the thing finally arrived, and I was ashamed to see how easy it would be to make, compared to what they chicken accessory vendors charged for it!  It doesn't cover her tail, but it will help, I think - I hope.

She ran off at top speed for the bushes, and wedged herself under them before Buck had time to get interested.  The Alpha Girls took brief notice, but it being too much trouble to go after her, Pearl, the Omega of the originals, went after the other 2 new girls who have so far kept their feathers and their health.
Bibs is so naked and chewed; her status is so lowered by the added article of clothing, that she is beneath notice for now.
 I probably should have refused this chicken when the women handed her to me, I seem to remember a pause, as if she was waiting for me to ask for a discount, or a different chicken.  It was $24 for three of them and when I handed her $25 she made no move to get change.  I must have looked like an easy mark.  Wouldn't be the first time.
I see that she's choosing at night to go in to the cat box to sleep while Barbie & Becky prefer the Eastlake chair.  I'd really better get that out of the shed this week or it will be too late to save it.  The smell of chicken shit is pervasive when allowed to soak into fabric, I'll bet.  All it needs to perfume the air is a bit of heat from the wood stove.
Looks like I'm going to be coughing up for another electric door before winter, but first, I have to install a window and fix the warped doors on the shed, I'm not confident that everyone will be happily roosting together by November.
A niece of a friend has passed on the only sensible suggestion as to how to get new hens to assimilate. The plan has to do with synchronizing their hormone levels.  Of course, that was too logical for me to leap to on my own, but hens being so much like middle school girls, naturally I should have remembered that members of the clique get their periods around the same time.
There might be hope, but it means trying to separate out a section of the main coop so that hens are safe, visible, but not peckable until that happens.

                                       For now, they share pillage space.

A different kind of clean

Buck takes a bath.

It is a rare and unguarded moment in his day, that he feels safe enough to do what chickens do best and with enormous entertainment value; clean themselves by burrowing into what is left of the garden, scooping dirt up over their backs and rolling.

The girls on the other hand, do this with great frequency.  It reminds me of the man who will not throw the nasty old sweatshirt away vs the woman who is tossing out shirts weekly, some still with the tags on them. [What on earth possessed me to buy THAT in the first place?  It makes me look like a potato!]

It is even more unusual that Buck bathe at the same time as his ladies.  I have most often seen him standing guard, all suspicion and responsibility.
When Buck reincarnates as a human [or perhaps I have this wrong, and he was human already, but did so well that he was rewarded with being a chicken] he will grow up to be in the State Police.  Maybe in that era, he'll have hovercraft and be able to really fly, not just dream about it, and disappoint himself whenever he leaps off the deck only to land thumpishly in the leaves.

C'mon & Let me see you shake your tailfeather....

Buck is down to one tail feather.   He squandered a couple of them attacking an inert object, The girls have bitten most of the rest off, so now he's shaped like an Araucana.

The next generation of tail is coming in, lovely iridescent green feathers.  I'd better get some hay for the hens' nesting boxes, because I suspect them of pulling out Buck's feathers to improve their nests, leaving their own intact.  Is this Chicken Vanity or convenience?  I don't perceive Buck as the type who would sacrifice his plumage for the greater good.  He's more the type who refuses you a mortgage and raises your insurance premiums.
Still, his self image does not include shame or the possibility that his alphatude could be in any way threatened by the loss of a feather or two, or eight.  He's like the old bald dude at the bar who still thinks he's hot enough to hold the attention of a waitress young enough to be a friend of his daughter's.
The vet, the "avian specialist" was unable to determine Buck's age.  Said he could be anywhere from 3 years to 6.  I still haven't found out how one determines the age of a chicken.  Hens are obvious, if they are laying they are young, if they are not, they are food.
My hens will not be food, at least not human food.  If a coyote or some other hungry dweller in the sanctuary gets them, I know I will have done my best to prevent it.  As I am allergic to eggs, the whole topic of eggs is beside the chicken point for me, I'm happy to have gotten through a summer without being infected again with Lyme's Disease and the only thing that is different is chickens in the yard, sucking down ticks.
It is interesting to me that the man in the street's opinion of Buck is heavily weighted on the side of the stew pot.  Is it that human need we have to feel as though we have control over our environment?  That we can do as we like, and don't have to feel threatened by a 2' tall, 11 pound person with no hands or English language?  Really?  How hard is it to deflect the occasional bad temper of someone where the scale is tipped so obviously in my favor?  I'm surprised and entertained to see, for example, my 6'4" cousin reluctant to get out of his big 4wd truck because Buck is circling it muttering innuendo and inhospitable personal evaluations.
It is said that to run from a grizzly bear isn't the thing to do. It is what I would do, and though Buck might like to think so, he is no grizzly bear.
Over the last couple of months I've learned  that the least ire is aroused by holding still or moving away slowly when he has given me the signal that all is not well. It continues to be a good policy to carry something to place in between myself and a pissed off rooster but I'm finding that he perceives me less as someone who is going to mess with him and more as someone who might have grapes.

Separate but Equal

Oddly, the effect of putting the brutalized hen in a cat carrier in the former chicken house has been that the other two {Becky & Barbie} have insisted on being in the shed as well.  Are they wondering if they belong there?  Are they taking precautionary measures against ending up with bloody beaks and tails?  During the day, they stay in another part of the yard from Buck and the bridge club.  Should night be any different?
A local grocery store gave me a lot of corn that they could no longer sell, and the chickens love it.  I break the cobs in half and toss them over the side of the deck, and wait for the clatter of little toes over the rocks and through the leaves.  If I throw any to the B's, the originals prance around threateningly until I feel as though I'm in the front row of something by Sondheim & Bernstein.  Or Shakespeare.
Well, they are made of sterner stuff than I, so today I moved my garden tools and work table back out of the shed, as well as the nice Eastlake chair I'm hoping to re-upholster eventually.  It has been a roosting destination for the last couple of nights  and is somewhat the worse for it.
I put in some nesting boxes.....- ok, I put in some cat boxes with tops, and put shavings in them to make them more enticing, and fastened a nice fat branch about 4' up in the corner.  When I went to check on them, I found them there.
 "The hell with the warm boxes" they said
"Give us a nice branch we can crowd together on" they said.
So now I know there is no escape from the unwelcome task of making a window in the back of the shed, repairing the doors and installing a heat lamp.  I thought buying a well planned chicken coop would spare me, but I'm still learning about chickens, and they are still patiently teaching me what works for them.
In their obviously intricate social world there are some people with whom one simply does not associate.  There are no suck-ups or flatterers in my flock.  They are honest chickens.  They don't like something, they say so.  Their enthusiasm is as undiluted.  They are passionate and unapologetic.  There is one flock that belongs and there are the interlopers.  I can put the B's in the main coop at night, but there is a wave of protest on both sides.  Now that they each have a place to sleep that feels safe and comforting, I'm hoping they'll learn to at least share a neighbourhood.  Separate - but equal.

Scapechicken

A friend of mine said she really felt that chickens were the Devil's pets.  I thought that at least biblically it was goats, but goat aficionados tell me that goats are smarter, sweeter, nicer and more useful than chickens.  I have only the experience of my brother's neighbors keeping goats many years ago, so my response is that chickens smell better than goats.
But I'm getting off the track.
This morning I awoke with the hope that today the chicken saddle would arrive in the mail.  I wanted to buy one [they are cheap] before I try to make one and get it all wrong.
One of the three new girls has been a target of aggression on the parts of Buck's Ladies, and possibly, though I hope not, the other two girls who came with her. Somebody didn't like the angle of her beak before she got here, because she was missing her feathers on a 14" square area of her back, and her wings had been partially stripped.  No pictures of this.  Not charming.
Now that the electric door is working, I can sleep a bit, but I still go out and check on everyone first thing, make sure they have decent amenities and collect eggs.  This morning I found Bibs with blood all over her lower back and tail and a drop of blood above her beak.
She resisted being scooped up.  I stalked her around the garden for a few minutes until she was addled enough to go into the fenced in part of the garden where she was less successful in evading the towel.
I brought her in, speaking encouraging words to her, put her in the tub and cleaned off her skin as carefully as possible, put some crushed comfrey leaf on her wounds and wrapped her up again.  I do not know if anything I'm doing is right.  I wasn't encouraged by the vet's lack of knowledge and resorting to the usual doctor trick of giving me anti-biotics to feed a chicken, so I'm just trying to do what is logical.  The next problem presenting itself is how to keep the other chickens from killing her, so she is going to stay separated from them in the hen hospital until she's got feathers again.  I suppose if it gets cold, she's going to be in the house at night.  At the moment, she has a medium sized airline grade dog carrier to herself, in the shade, with bedding, food, water and treats.  I have spotted Stella circling it and muttering threats and promises.
This bullying brings up stuff for me, I have been horrible to other people, other people have been horrible to me. It happens.  In the chicken world, it is so naked and unapologetic.   "C'est Comme ça" as my grandmother would remark.  The pecking order. The underdog.  The Lottery.  The Scapechicken.

The Unseen Danger...

Coyotes.  Weasels, Owls, Hawks, Vultures,   Racoons & Fox; all these animals are circling around the property in search of a meal.  It's not good enough for it to taste like chicken, especially when they might be able to get an actual chicken.
This weekend the number of people who told me terrible stories about how they had lost their chickens, or how people they knew or were related to had lost their chickens was directly proportionate to the rise in my systolic blood pressure as I worried about everyone getting in to the coop on time.
I forgot to tell Rosamund that the chicken water has to be cleared out daily because they kick shavings and feathers into it. 
I forgot to tell Rosamund that even though Buck and the girls seem to have gone into the house, there has to be a beak count with a flashlight, or we'll come up the next day a chicken or two short.
 Barbie is determined to sleep in the former chicken house.  There is no explanation for this because she wasn't here when that shed was in use.  I do not want to cough up for another electric door and besides I need to have some shed space for my use, though Barbie doesn't think so.
 The other chickens who came here with her go into the chicken house and pile into the egg laying bins.  The Bridge Club perches up above and sneers down at them.  They've had a week to get used to the new girls - I think there's a little less name-calling going on.
Two nights running, I have gone into the shed with a flashlight to find Barbie roosting on some storage boxes.  It's easy to pick her up when she's sleepy,  for a moment her adrenaline is up, then after being patted and massaged a bit, she sticks her head in my armpit and goes back to sleep.  It's endearing.  My cats won't let me pick them up waking or sleeping, but the chickens, though they may resist being caught while on the run, once they are nabbed they give in to it - even Buck.
Though today he gave me a good bite and steely "So There!" sort of look when I tried to touch his comb.  I'm still not in the inner circle.
I wonder if this docility is a reflex that helps them accept their fate when they are grabbed by a predator.  I hope it includes endorphins.

Chicken Spa

Buck is suspicious of the hot tub.  As far as he is concerned, it is a very large stew pot.

Buck doesn't hold back when it comes to towels.  Even an inert hanging towel could be used to swaddle him.

When you have Buck for your personal muscle, you can afford to take it easy.
The girls idea of relaxation includes rolling in the garden, digging holes and scooping dirt up over their backs.
I wonder how they would like it near the beach?  They would want to be away from the shoreline under an umbrella, but they might like to have access to the seaweed and assorted bits and ends that wash up at the high tide line.   Maybe they would sleep under the boardwalk in the heat of the day while Buck kept an eye out for seagulls.  They'd be at risk for swallowing undigestible trash that is everywhere.

Some people will eat anything.

Avian Aliens

Considering that I can't eat eggs and that I give them all away, use them as bribes or get $2.25 a dozen for them at the local market, it does look crazy that I have spent so much money on these flightless birds.
Well, I hope they're not listening, because a couple of them believe they can fly, and who am I to dash their dreams?  I don't even dream of flying.
I bought and figured out how to install a door that opens and closes by electricity, regulated by a timer.  The timer does not work.  It's not an outdoor timer which is a mystery, since I bought it from The Backyard Chicken, a purveyor of all things fowl whom one would think had a grip on the correct equipment to include in their pricey unit.  But no.  This is an emporium that advertises items such as chicken diapers [ ! ] and saddles.
Too intrigued to let that go, I found out what saddles were for, and they make sense.  One of the B's has a severe feather deficit on her back, and I think I'm going to have to get one for her until they grow back in.
The diaper, a most undignified object, is for when you have to have your chickens in the house for some reason.  Quarantine, frigid cold or because you have become truly silly about your chickens and are trying out the idea of having them as house pets.
My experience so far encourages me that chickens would like nothing better than to come inside, though wearing a diaper might be too high a price to pay.
I try to imagine wrestling Buck into such a contraption.
I'm fairly certain that I would be the loser in that contest, and would have a much grumblier rooster than I do at present, and recently he's been very grumbly indeed.
I'm surprised at his behavior toward the New Girls.  I would think he would be pleased.  I would think his manhood would be swelling at the prospect and flapping himself on the back for being rewarded with 3 replacement hens for the 2 he lost track of early on in his reign, instead, he is indignant and suspicious.
I must be slipping to expect gratitude from a chicken - or anyone;  the cats are historically ungrateful as well.
In keeping chickens to please myself, I am happy every day to watch them live their lives that are so different from mine, and yet not so different when it comes to the purity of the turf, the availability of water, food, shelter, warmth, companionship, conversation and conflict.
It's distressing when they aren't pleased and so pleasing when they aren't distressed.

Chasing Chickens Again.

To be sure that everyone is in the safety of the coop at night, I'm back to going out and worrying the chickens until they decide that it's just plain easier to go in to the hen house.  I've found that Buck is a good one to start with mainly because  his four girls will follow him in, but if I'm persuading them, I have to be aware of where he is.

He is very suspicious of the broom, even when it is leaning against the wall and minding its own business.  If he sees the broom, he will attack it.  If I walk around with the broom, he will attack it, or me if he can get past the broom, so we do a dance where the steps are me holding the broom, and moving it very slowly in semi-circles to foil him.
This ends up with him wheezing "Grrraahh-worrrah- wwrrrrh - humph!  Buh!" and going to his perch.  One by one the girls follow, but they are indignant at finding one of the B's already in there cowering in a nesting box.  The other two B's are surprisingly easy to catch and pick up giving me the opportunity to pat them as though they were cats until they calm down.  I've been lifting the nesting lid and putting them in that way so they are spared the insults and rude behavior of the Bridge Club.
I close the doors and hear a bit of chatter, not all of it friendly, and hope for a better day tomorrow.
I did notice that Becky for about a minute of me chasing Buck and the girls joined in the churning and scuffling of the main flock, so maybe..........

Some people have better manners than others.

Buck won't have anything to do with the new girls.  He's pretending they don't exist.  His ladies are another story.  They sit up on the perch spitting racial or social or fowl epithets down into the single nesting box in the corner where the new hens {Becky, Barbie and Bibs}  are all piled on top of one another trying to resemble a pile of something - not chickens.
When they are let out, Buck and the bridge club go off on their accustomed route starting with begging at the door, then lurking around corners followed by sneaking on to the porch and hiding under the furniture and grumbling about the unfairness of life.

The New Girls head for the fenced in garden where they clean the plants of bugs, and clean the earth of plants, lie around in the dirt and whisper among themselves.
It all feels way too much like a middle school dance to make me feel as though they will work it out.
I'm relying on everyone's natural forgiveness.
Maybe it works better with chickens.

Christian American Chickens.

Anybody who tells you that if you introduce a few new chickens into a small flock by night doesn't know my chickens.  I have heard this over and over and over, so yesterday I bought 3 hens under 9 months old to give Buck a little more to do.
Dan told me about some chickens on Craig's list, the price was right and the number was right, so I made the call and talked to a woman who told me she was on her way to church, but I could get them in the afternoon and would find their driveway marked  by an American flag.
This was true, it was the biggest one I've seen outside of an army base or a political speech.
She was paring her flock down and was selling a pretty trio consisting of an araucana and two cochins.
I picked them up on my way to a gathering near Boston.  They were very quiet and  asleep by the time I got there it being 43 degrees North Latitude here, and gets dark early.
When I got back I put them in the coop, still in the cat carrier, but with the door open and short of some sleepy mumbling from both groups, not much was said.
This morning though, I went out, and heard the occasional thumping and cries of distress.  There wasn't time to get a fence up, you can tell by now that I'm not a very organized chicken farmer, so I let Buck out, and the 4 girls followed, the 3 new girls stayed cowering in the coop.  I opened the big door to have a look and they all started yelling at me like teenagers surprised in the bathroom.  Buck & his ladies are  grooming and loitering around my door as usual, it's pouring rain, and I'm not in the mood to go and build a fence.
Ok, ok, ok, I'll go out and build a fence.......
........
Or sort of put one up that has to be made better in the future - before the ground freezes.
By something resembling a miracle, I happened to spark the curiosity of the resident chickens who up to that point had been doing investigative work on the porch, lurking around corners and begging for scraps by the house.
Just at the point where the 2 lengths of chicken wire meet was the point I had to get to to close that gap before the girls and Buck noticed that they were surrounded.
New hens still in the coop.  Won't come out and don't want to talk about it.

Tomorrow is another day.