On the Other Hen....

Is it consideration, or is it a bribe?  As my flock dwindles this summer, Buck is trying harder.  He's putting girls in the coop earlier, and I have to close the door before dusk now, or Bandit, the raccoon gets all their eggs, and it's only a matter of time before he decides to take a chicken.  I'm not sure who has been taking chickens, but I have lost 2 during the day.  Buck now only has 5 girls, and he keeps them close, gets more upset when his current favorite runs off on her own, and hunts for little treats for them.  I have watched him catch a large fly, kill it, toss it down and make little short noises that are similar to what he says when he's tucking in to a pile of blueberries or watermelon - "tuk,tuk,bik,bik, tuckety, bickity!" and the hens run over to see what he has, he picks up the fly and drops it within beak range of one of the ladies, and they give it the eye.  He picks it up and pretends to eat it, "num num" he seems to be telling them, or [" Hey baby, how do you like the canoli?"] and they swallow the fly, say thank you in Avian and move on to the next edible.  They must have amazing taste receptors in their beaks, [ I heard on NPR that birds don't taste with their tongues ] because they get so excited about certain things, or the possibility of something new.
This weekend rain or sweltering heat aside, I have to enlarge the size of their restricted area, because I'm going off and leaving them in the care of my family to move an RV across the country, West to East.  This blog will be about that for a couple of entries, so if you don't want travelogue, skip it.  

tick, tick.

Between computer problems and having too many animals on the property, it has been  enough work to get simple things done, so there's a backlog of stories now.  My daughter's giant puppy and her disagreeable cat are staying with me for what seems like the entire summer as time stretches out ahead of me like a Salvador Dali Landscape.
Storm suffers OCD when it comes to engaging Buck in a game of tag.  It makes me tired just watching them.  She begins by standing outside their new enclosure and barking.  Buck takes that sort of talk very seriously, adopting  martial stance and Elizabethan costume. After an prelude of stomping back and forth on his side of the fence, he moves briskly with focus and intention around the corner of his doorway and out into the arena. [ It used to be a lawn, but between dog toes and chicken beaks it has become an arena]  Storm lunges and barks until Buck gives chase but with the conservative nature of chickens, only does what is necessary before strutting back to engage in the important business of bug detection.  Storm never feels as though the issue has been settled, so it may take as many as a dozen tries to provoke Buck into a serious chase.  This ends with Storm standing in the road, access to the house blocked by Chicken.
The girls in the meantime wait in the coop, talking amongst themselves.
"Oooooh, he's so Big!" the say.
A word about the cat.
Molly.
More about the cat: She's a little bitch, and this is coming from a cat person.  A cat whisperer, even.  She has driven off my beloved boys. They have gone to the neighbors, I hope not forever.  Yesterday began by having to throw out all bedding down to the mattress  and the carpet in the room she has been expressing herself in and hiding my shoes before they fall prey to the same fate.  My cats and dogs have always loved cuddling with each other.  Storm and Molly have not reached that kind of understanding.
But the title of this is about ticks - there are so many ticks this year, I'd need a much bigger flock to keep them from turning up daily on my arms, legs, neck - I may have missed some, but the nature of ticks is that they don't go unnoticed forever.  It's too bad the dog can't be trained to find them and eat them instead of just being a tick metro.
Well.
Time for the Deet Dip.

Jail Birds

No more rolling in the perennials or mining in the vegetable garden.  My mother often complained that there was no way to keep jerusalem artichokes from taking over the entire yard, but if she had let me have chickens as a child, she would not have had a jerusalem artichoke problem.  I planted a nice even row of them and they had gotten well established but this year, I see they are coming up in places I wouldn't have picked, and the row?  ..... gone.
This month has been about restoring plantings, and trying to erect a fence that the chickens can't wriggle under or flounder over.  I have a couple of fliers who like to get up on something and flip themselves over the fence in spite of a large piece of lattice placed horizontally off the back of the coop and resting on the fence.
The third day of being imprisoned Buck hooted non stop until 11am while Pearl and Barbie created a groove in the ground next to the fence.  They have shade.  They have water.  They have food. They have treats and they have each other.  I'm letting them out for 3 hours in the afternoon until they go in on their own so that they don't feel completely bereft but I have to say, it is nice to be able to get things done without being ambushed by the angry bird.

& That's How You Spell "Chicken"

There isn't anything chicken about chickens.  They are valiant, intrepid and persistent.  It is possible that they have an inflated idea of their capacity to manage a world in which larger animals with teeth rule.
Buck is a big chicken.  When he draws himself up to his full height he is 24'' tall.  He weighs almost 15lbs, and for any  jungle fowl that is respectable, and respect is what he likes.
So when Storm, comes to visit, a political discussion blooms every few hours.   Buck stands his ground, armed only with surprise, speed and very pointy spurs.
Storm remains convinced that she is going to show that chicken who is in charge of smaller life forms, and though she has gotten close, so far she hasn't gotten an actual grip on Buck before I've been able to put a stop to it.

 Buck remains unflapped and I have seen Bette go after Storm with an enthusiasm that doesn't match her size.
The cats, who are well equipped for a scuffle, just stay on the roof until the dog goes home.
Conditions have improved.  Storm listens now when I say "NO CHICKEN" and while she and I discuss the fine points, Buck stands perfectly still watching the proceedings with one eye, and standing between us and the hens.
It may be awhile before they have an amicable relationship.  I think my dream of Buck and Storm on a Victorian style post card is unrealistic.

Peeping Mom

I'll just report that tonight Buck demonstrated his opinion about nasty fleshy faces with eyes situated inappropriately at the front of their skulls, proclaiming them to be predators peering through the coop windows at dusk.
In my own defense, it was well past time when he should have taken the girls to roost, and there had been some squawking that sounded like distress.
Here it is, May, and I have been able to retain most of my flock in the presence of foxes with kits, owls w/ owlets, and whatever you call baby fisher cats.
Anyhow, the hens protested when I looked through the window to take attendance so Buck wasted no time, as is his style, and charged out  full Elizabethan ruff, toes and beak in the air.
"Don't be silly"  I advised.
"Get out, you!"  He replied.
I then told him I would pick him up if he didn't go in on his own, and so, grumbling, he went up the ramp, turned around beak facing out so that he would be able to deal with followers.
He is paying me forward for the fence that goes up this weekend in anticipation of a week of dog-sitting.
The cats learned about Buck on the first day.

The dog is slower.

A sit down strike

The last notice on Barbie is that I managed to get her isolated long enough to get a chicken saddle on her poor stripped back, and that kept her safe for about 1/2 a day.  She had successfully wriggled out of it the last time I tried, and now she had it part way off, and would take three steps, stop, turn, tug on it, take three more steps, stop.... it was torture.  She reminded me of someone getting out of a car and trying to pull down an ill fitting sweatshirt and pull up pants that are two sizes too small.
 I felt that once again, in my ignorance I was torturing animals.
Some design, though.  I often think, as I try out these chicken products, that someone is having a good laugh at my expense.  I can hear them as they pack up the order chuckling among themselves like pleased hens at having managed to sell another useless item purported to make chickens' lives better.
Well.
This morning I picked her up and put her in her own crate with some of my daughter's magic healing salve on her back and a collection of the choicest treats in the house, but in 5 minutes she had knocked over a carefully weighted bowl of water and pushed all the food out through the grates.   She said "tuck,tuck,tuck, ba-GAWK, tuck,tuck" over and over.
I drove to town and bought some "anti-picking spray" came home and put it on her.  I took her to the door and put her outside again.
Buck had spent the day making circles around the house and peering in the windows.  As soon as I let her out, he came tearing around the house, and she assumed the position of submission, and he welcomed her back into the flock.  That's why her back is raw.  The other hens keep an eye on him and step aside when he give them the "Come on, baby" moves.
I don't know what else I can do.
Get more hens, maybe.

ow.

There's nothing like the hot tub for stiffness, there's a groove on the rim so that it's possible to rest one's neck and float.
Today I looked out the window to make sure the chickens were paying attention to getting in to the coop.  I looked out the window, because if they heard the porch door, they would rush over with expectations of a bedtime snack.
After determining that they were making their way in to the chicken house, I went to float in the hot water.
That was nice until I felt a sharp point hitting the back of my head as though someone had come and stabbed me with a pencil.  No mystery there, I relocated to the center, out of reach, and Buck paced back and forth on the deck as close to the tub as he could get.   He poked his head up, then his tail, dancing up and down, talking to himself.  After about 5 minutes he decided it wasn't worth it, and possibly remembering that he had responsibilities more pressing than putting me in my place,  turned and ran toward the coop.
I still have no idea what he is on about with the hot tub.  Unless someone is in it, he is completely uninterested.  He does not care to get wet, and though I have seen people put their chickens in swimming pools, the chickens don't look as though it's a choice they would make on their own.