I got to spend a wonderful day at home and part of it was looking after my hens. I hung rope from the rafters and hooked it to their water can and feeder. 15 chickens had been making a terrible, terrible mess out of their food and water, so enough was enough. It was when I finished with the water that I realized that one of my antisocial wynadottes was grouching at an americauna. They were both sitting on the bag of pine shavings I use to restock the laying boxes when too much gets scratched out. It was odd, because the americauna didn't look very happy to be sharing the most comfortable seat in the coop with an antisocial wynadotte. The americauna would twist her neck around and peck the wynadotte but not very hard. After a bit she did peck hard and in the process moved just a bit. Well the wynadotte ducked her head under the americauna's butt and pushed her right out of where she had been setting. The americaune didn't stand for it for one second and rooted the wynadotte's fluffy butt right back out and set herself back down. Now into this mix came one of my barred rocks. Fortunately she isn't the dominant one or there would have been trouble. She just clambored on top of the americauna's back backwards and tried to set down on top of HER. The wynadotte was still there taking pecks from the americauna, and the barred rock just looked like she wanted a seat on the bench somewhere. Now there are 3 perfectly good (empty) nesting boxes above them, but the fluffy butts all want the sack of wood shavings. I laughed as the americauna was starting to feel squished inbetween these two fluffy butts and pecked them both hard. The wynadotte hopped off but the barred rock just sort of growled and didn't react. The two ended up laying there, and the antisocial wynadotte relegated herself to the nesting box. Another startling surprise; last night i got home and I was missing two chickens. My old barred rock and my rooster! I thought the worst for the hen, because she was just old looking. But the rooster? He didn't seem the kind to wander off, and he'd demonstrated that he could hide well enough at the first sign of trouble, so I didn't think something had killed him. I grabbed my flashlight and started looking. I looked around the outside of the coop, on top of it (i have hens that take naps in the bird netting like it's a hammock), and along the horse corral fence. No chickens. I went into my neighbor's yard and walked along the fence line and I found them. They were both huddled together on the ground in what I'm sure was pretty cold conditions. The rooster was trying his best to keep the hen warm, but she was shivering. This barred rock was pretty messed up when we got her, and is still missing a lot of feathers. So when I picked her up and felt her shivering I tucked her inside my coat where the shivering stopped and a confused "bok bok bok?" started. The rooster, not seeing the hen started looking all over. Granted, it was night and I don't know what he was hoping to see anyway, but he kept looking for the hen. I brought them back into the coop, put his cowardly (but chivalrous) butt back on the perch where he belonged, and put my hen on top of the brooder where the heat lamp shines. She nestled down on top of the screen and closed her eyes. The shivering soon stopped and she opened her eyes again and growled at me. THE NERVE!
