The new girls

This morning I woke to the sound of someone moaning.  At first I thought it was my granddaughter having a bad dream , but then I remembered that I had been given a rooster last night and put him in with the new hens who had been in residence for a day. After a couple of months in a chicken free environment, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing so I bought 6 pullets.  The first part of the first day, they refused to leave the coop, then 3 of them refused to go back in.  I spent some time with a flashlight looking for the roosting locations they preferred and found 2 of them on a ladder and the third under a bush near the house.  They appear to know that the big house the humans live in is more desirable than their own so I thought a rooster would help them figure it out.  Around here, you only need to say the word and people are showering you with free roosters.  I chose a 2 year old Wyandotte, because I had heard they were docile to humans and after having a huge personality who eschewed docility, it sounded pretty good.  I was not ready for the voice though.  It isn't a conventional crowing sound, more like a long hoot.  I am happy to note that there is now a conversation going on between Mr. Woosta and the girls, they were completely silent or only barely whispering amongst themselves until he came and I missed eavesdropping on their gossip and opinions.

Chickens.

I am definitely going to restrict the movement of my avian neighbors.  As soon as I let them out in the morning, they run like hell for my house and stand as close to the door as they can get for hours and stare at me while I try to get anything done.
I tried to distract them by putting up a large 3 sided mirror where they could admire themselves instead of insisting that I admire them all the time, but after about 15 minutes they figure out that it is only a reflection.
If you think you can work under the supervision of a chicken, think again.  They are powerful thought transfer masters.  They let me know what they think of my work.
"Not so great.  Why don't you add some more red to that?"
"Why don't any of your landscapes have figures in them?  Can't you draw people?"
This is why there is such a glut of chickenalia infesting ETSY.  People who have decided it would be a good thing to have fresh eggs for breakfast try to get to work in the morning after stealing and eating someone's potential children have to endure the accusing looks of the slave Avians.
It becomes unavoidable that watercolors, oils, fiber art and welding is given over to images of chickens.  You can't ignore what is in front of you, and if you live near chickens they always are; unless they are following you, and I can't recommend against that strongly enough if a rooster is involved.
It is clear.  If I am going to get any landscapes painted that don't have chickens in them, or portraits of humans that look less like chickens, a fence is needed.

The more things change...

There is a deceptive calm in having a rooster who is not a mean son of a bitch.  I was not counting on Spring, though, and once again, I have a giant Maran rampaging out of the coop in the morning, jumping circles around the hens and fixing me with one steely eye.  I don't need to understand Avian to know what he wants.  Now that the temperature has risen enough that protests begin at dawn I know enough to realize that I had better show up at that coop door with a handful of grapes and lettuce if I know what is good for me.
I had this idea that a rhythm had been established, harmony embraced and detente reached over the winter.  People were happy to sit on the perch near the heated water and the display of grain choices waiting for the assured delivery of nuts, berries and other treats.
Now I am being reminded, usually before dawn, that I am expected to see to the needs of my Avian neighbors, that is if I want their cooperation in the area of tick control.
Buck is willing to climb over the snow bank, skate over the ice flow and chase the cat in order to get to the picnic table where he stands and tries to jump up to the wild bird's feeder.
The squirrels stay away when he is patrolling the area, so I guess I should be grateful, but it's going to take a lot of clorox to make that picnic table useable again.
This Buck, in his second incarnation, has all the beauty of himself before, but none of the desire to strip the flesh off my legs.  I appreciate this, but I am not certain I trust it.  He has begun to make the same noises, in the same key, telling the girls of an intruder's approach, gurgling happily over finding some horrible piece of trash in the yard to eat, or letting me know what he thinks of having to share the path with humans.  I had better not, in my optimism think that I can get away with not fencing in the plants and flowers I hope to keep and have the use of this season, there's only so much that may be expected from a chicken.  They may not fly, but they remember flight.   For insecurity, there's nothing to beat a hostage who remembers his freedom.

Chickens again

Well, a long time has gone by since my last post, and there have been some changes in the yard, but instead of bringing the story up to date, I'll just plunge in with today's report.
Prologue:  Last week, my son in law sent me and email with the subject line "Woosta?" and even though it was a retrograde Mercury I was weak, and agreed to take on this animal, even though I only have 2 girls left, both non-oviparous by now.  They are not interested in romance, they are, I think, a couple, so I had my doubts about how this was going to go, but all the same, I went and picked up the big handsome rooster and brought him home.
In transferring him from cage to coop, he muscled past me and ran off in an easterly direction  putting his full attention on the job.
Well, that's that, I thought, but today, reports of a rooster hanging out in the parking lot up the road came to me, and so I stalked him for about an hour, following him at a distance around and around the woods, up the glacial erratics, throwing pine cones near him as he skittered out on the ice.  He wouldn't let me get within 30 feet of him, but like I tell my granddaughter, "You gotta sleep some time".
He climbed a tree and before roosting, let me know what he thought of me and my attitude in short sentences.  I waited until it was quite dark and netted him, popped him in the coop and retired for a nice cup of tea.
He has been on his own in the woods for a week, it has been cold at night, his only food has been forage,  he has not been under cover the way my princesses have been, his comb was frostbitten, and yet he did not get grabbed by one of the many predators in the Sanctuary.
He has earned a place in the coop here, and a name:  Buck Rogers.

Ain't No Messiah Here For Us Chickens

So on Christmas while folks were eating some of the animals that donated their feeding dish to be Baby Jesus' cradle, I got to thinking;  what is Christmas about for the animals?  They sacrifice more than their place settings.  Now their lives and even the integrity of their genetic codes are on the line.  Some of them give us hearts or bits of hearts so that we can continue playing golf and shopping.
Buck and the girls received cat food [ let's not get started on what goes into making cat food ] grapes, apples, mixed salad greens, dried fruits and plenty of nuts, but is that compensation for the ravaging havoc we inflict on them as a slave species?
The weather was nasty, a beak or two poked out for a sniff was as far as anyone would go.
Last winter, Buck lured his girls out to forage when it was bitter, icy and even if there was some snow, but now they have gotten used to a warm coop where food doesn't have to be worked for and greens get home delivery.  Today, I shoveled a path for them, put some treats on the ground and went away, assuming they'd come out eventually.  Hours went by, I could hear them in the coop jockeying for prime position in the nesting boxes - I heard Buck trying coax one or the other of them into giving him a little sugar.  Then I heard the "let's get ready to roost" chatter.
They are no different from anyone else in the winter who doesn't want to go out tearing up the slopes on slats or blades, or tennis rackets.  In the move toward more efficiency, or as my family would characterize it, laziness, Even chickens like to do what makes the most sense.  Why make work for themselves?  Only in chickens, it isn't considered a sin, therefore, no salvation is needed, and no Savior.......- unless you are a battery hen.

S.A.D. Chicken

In the very small, [but I am certain, festooned with multiple ridges] brain of Buck, the weather is my fault, and I must pay.
I have stepped up the bribes.
It has been rainy, or cold, or windy, so the coop got cleaned on the first nice day.  I was told in pecks of one syllable;
"The eggs are not your beeswax."
"Keep your hands off the feeding tray and don't touch the water dispenser." he advised.
"Get away from that door" he suggested.
Later after Buck was finished marching around getting all the girls in before dark I made the mistake of being too near their little door before he had roosted.  Ka-THUMP!  I heard as he leapt down, rushing for the door, planting a well aimed snap on the web of my hand.
He has been bad tempered lately.
I see a pattern here; he goes along for awhile, pretending not to notice me walking back and forth to the car, not turning an eye toward any red object I might have in hand until we have had a few days of rain.  The lack of sun acts on him like a depressant.
He becomes moody.
He broods on prior injustices.
He remembers he was once a proud velociraptor.
Though his brothers and comrades have been put to death - rolled in batter made from their children and run through the fryer, he has survived.  He is alive for a reason, and there are days when he takes up the flag of Avian Liberation in his beak with cold determination.
He will not listen to reason.
He is not swayed by grapes.
He will stop to eat them but then fortified with their sweet juice, remembers the task at hand.
The humans must pay.
Three of the New Girls - New Pearl, Stella and Golda don't understand that there is a revolution going on.  When I come out into their yard, they run over and stand very close to my shoes looking hopeful.  They allow me to scratch their stomachs, to pick them up - they have even been willing to sit on my shoulder.  Buck looks up in horror.  

Update......

In the 2 month hiatus there have been some changes.  Just as I was feeling smug and superior about having kept my chickens in one flock for as long as I had, I lost 2 in the space of a week.  I later found out that my neighbor who has a small flock about 1/2 of a mile away had lost several of hers to fisher cats.  The fishers had been prying the metal siding off her coop to get at her hens, and she dealt with it by moving the hens to a friend's house until the fisher went looking elsewhere for dinner.  She told me she had been unsuccessful in trapping the beast and asked if I had been losing chickens.  I would have appreciated the warning in advance, but as it was, I lost Mae and Pearl leaving Buck with 2 ladies.  I was going to see how that went, but then a friend [the one who landed me with Buck in the first place] told me about a man who wanted to cull his flock of some hens, and sucker that I am, figuring that taking care of Buck and 2 girls is no different from 6, went to the other side of the Merrimac river to collect 2 Delawares, 1 Buff Orphington and 1 barred Plymouth.  Very charming girls, beautiful and well kept, and introduced them to the coop.
This time I tried to be responsible and divided the coop w/some chicken wire so that the new girls could be viewed and criticized by the established hens without being picked on.  That worked the first night.
The second night I checked on them, and the Plymouth [Zebra] was muscling over the top of the fence to get closer to Buck, and Stella, one of the Delawares was squeezing around the edge through the tunnel of nesting boxes with the same purpose in mind.  Buck sat quietly on his perch eyes half closed, enjoying the attention.
Day 3, I gave up and tore out the netting while the chickens formed into a flock and roamed around the yard, ruining what was left of my perennials and pushing all the piles of raked leaves back on to the walk.
Buck had been docile during the time of only having 2 hens to bully and pester, but now with more he is busy running back and forth,  keeping them in line, making sure they stay together and making sure I understand that he is taking no nonsense from me.  The first couple of evenings, I was getting the chickens in, and he made it very clear to me that I was interfering.  He seemed to take it personally that I was telling him how to do his job, and once he turned and looked at me, unmistakably telling me so.  Then he bit my shoes, ignored me as he went back to work getting the girls in to the coop.
All the same, I have since then had an evening or two when I have had to pick up 'New Pearl' and 'Golda'  to put them in to the coop because they were standing around finishing up a cigarette and chatting as it was getting dark.
After 1 1/2 years I have realized that I am a slave to the chickens.  They have destroyed what yard I had, left fewmets all over the place and gnawed my herbs into oblivion, yet I still find them charming, and prefer their singing and chatter to  almost any gathering of humans.  Buck goes through periods of calm, and just when I relax and think he's mellowed, he lets me know what's what.... Then we have to play " Who's the Bitch?".