True story...
Bumpers the crippled chicken and I have a special relationship. Ever since I found her with what I believe was a broken hip, in shock, dehydrated, and nursed her back to health, we've been something more than just a chicken and a chicken owner. When she was learning how to walk again, I would take her outside with me, and every time I got what she felt was too far away, she would call me back, squawking at me as if I should have known better. Now that the flock is in the new pen, where they can see my front door, every time I walk outside she calls out to me, telling me to come see her. When I get inside the pen, if she wants to be at my feet she will peck whomever is in her way. Woe to the chicken that stands between a hen and her human.
Bumpers has recently started laying again, after a hiatus that started when I moved her into the new pen with her new flockmates. When I walked outside at one point yesterday, Bumpers called to me. I walked over, and she disappeared inside a large tarp holding a hay bale. I thought that was odd, but shortly after that, she came out and told me she had an egg for me! I need to move that hay.
So today I go outside and as I'm pulling my hood up, I see Bumpers jump on top of a roll of fencing and start squawking at me. That really makes me smile, but here's where it gets really odd. I went to the pen and she ran over to the hay pile and assumed the laying position. I thought this was so different, I stayed out in the pen and waited for her. She was facing away from me, but every couple of minutes she would wiggle around, then look back at me. Then, I swear, she stood up, looked under her feathered bulk at the eggless hen-shaped indention in the hay, then looked back up at me as if to say "Don't go yet; I'm working on it!" I'm almost positive this chicken WANTED me to take her egg!
At that point I picked her up, along with a bundle of the hay under her, and deposited the whole armload inside a nesting box. I sure do love that chicken!
