So my rescues are hilarious! And I’m crying it’s so funny!
I was sitting by the pen watching as each of the hens from biggest to smallest formed a line and walked into the big nesting box playing follow the leader… seconds later my roo looks up realizes he’s been forgotten and goes to follow after, he gets one leg into the box and the hens get fussy, he propmptly takes that leg back out, turns in an unnatural way as if he were on a lazy Susan, and waddles cautiously back to where he was to look off into the distance as if he was having an existential crisis. I’m pretty sure I freaked out my poor neighbours when I startled cacckling! I feel you dude! I feel you! You just let them girls have their little girl time in there with their feather wands and hen related whoodoo! lol I was dying at the instantaneous regret and trauma my dude went through. Poor guy needs some friends!
Oh! And it gets so much better too!!!
So I go to grab them all tonight to put them in their indoor coop to protect from predators… I get my second egg and like the one yesterday, all the hens are sitting in the back of their nest box, then my roo is there keeping the near featherless girl warm by sitting on her like she were a chick. Then there is the lone egg again that them girls want nothing to do with… I like to grab my hens first to get hem safe knowing aside from the flood lights and motion detectors that if anything tries for them while I’m transporting them from the day coop to the night one, that my roo will be loud and let me know to come running with the dogs to grab tomorrows dinner if anything wants to test my levels of protectiveness for my animals. I get all the hens, my boy is not happy, super gentle when he’s mad and starts pecking you, you’d think you were just poking yourself with the eraser on your pencil, no marks, no pinch, no pain, no scratches, just a muttering roo that wants you to know he doesn’t appreciate being left behind. So I go to get him last… turns out my dude’s decided that if I’m gonna take away his flock then he’s just gonna go ahead and make his own. Went back for him just to find him trying to hatch the lone egg! I’m dying he’s the sweetest boy1 he’s also an amazing protector for the mini flock. When the girls are sleeping he’s front and centre guarding the entrance. When my one girl is cold as her feathers were near bared while at her previous home, he goes and sits on her to keep her warm. I’d naturally intervene if there was an issue but she will nestle up right in behind him until he steps back and covers her fully so it’s clearly a wanted behaviour. But the first time he’d done it and I was missing a hen I thought he ate her! lol was not expecting him to be sheltering her! What an amazing boy. He’s so quiet too, he will crow, but he’s so calm and after about noonish he’s done for the day if nothing is a miss.
