Show Bird

Hef won a photo contest on backyardchickens.com! He was selected Best of Breed! He is not surprised.

Game Chickens

As a gift, I received thirteen Old English Game Bantam chicks. As it turns out, these chickens are neither bantams nor are they OEG (at least not pure). They look like mixed breeds: a little OEG, a little American Game, a little Modern Game, a little... Cubalaya? As happens, I have many more roosters than I need, and it seems like someone else discovers how to crow every morning.

Not a Rooster?

I had six "fawn" colored chickens, six "spangled" chickens, and a pure white chicken. The white one is definitely a rooster. A very LOUD rooster. A very loud and moderately insecure rooster.

Can You Find Five Boys?

Four or five of the spangled are boys, and at least two of the fawns are boys. This leaves me with more boys than girls. Ain't that always the way?

Rooster?

I have options - there's a goat sale every other Saturday and there are poultry swapped beforehand. I could take them. I can put a sign up in the feed store offering roosters. I can eat them. This seems the most useful option. They're really only good for stew or soup so I could skin them and not even worry about removing the feathers. Truthfully I dislike this part, I get hesitant and sad, which means I run the risk of hurting the chicken instead of outright killing it. And that makes me more nervous, which makes me even more likely to screw it up. I like to think this makes me NOT a sociopath.

There Are Definitely Two Roosters There

And truthfully, there are some cockerel that would be too hard to kill, like the ones you rescued from the bottom of the coop and nursed back to health only to find out they're boys.

 

Totally a Rooster. Dammit.

Dog Attack

My beautiful Wyandotte, Hermione, was killed today. I came home to find two neighborhood dogs in a pile of feathers. I'll spare you a picture of the carcass, but it's clear she fought for her life but died a horrible, painful death. She might only be a chicken, but she didn't deserve to be torn apart by dogs and finished off by fire ants. I chased off the dogs and followed the trail of feathers to Hermione's body. I was so upset. She suffered because people can't keep their damn dogs on their own property. I don't clip flight feathers on my chickens because I hoped it would give them an advantage against predators. But a laying hen doesn't stand much of a chance against two pit bulls, especially not when they're bored and/or underfed.

Site of the Attack

Trail of Feathers

Lone Feather

Hermione Before the Attack

Things Get Biblical

I was preparing notes on a lecture in my dining room when I heard distressed cackling from the chicken yard. What really captured my attention was the sudden, intense vibration cause by something slamming into the house itself. I briefly wondered if the DirecTV dish had fallen off the roof. When I opened the window I saw that the chickens were in Velociraptor Mode, and they'd surrounded a large rat snake and were driving it away from an injured pullet. The chicken was missing her tail, and the snake had a mouthful of feathers. A very bad situation, indeed!

I flew into a blind rage and screamed at the snake, "MY CHICKENS! MINE MINE MINE! NOT YOUR CHICKENS!" I ran outside, thrashed the offending reptile thoroughly and was in the process of choking it to death before regaining my senses.

Snakes are predatory. They eat live prey. It was unfair of me to punish this snake just for doing what it is supposed to do. Using my training as a person who watches Animal Planet, I placed the snake in a pillowcase and released it 5 miles down the road. When I returned, I found another, LARGER rat snake in the chicken yard. And so went the rest of my weekend. I don't have a rat problem, but I appear to have a rat PREDATOR problem. I thought the snakes would be more interested in eggs. Why they are attacking the chickens is beyond me. They can't possibly swallow one. It begs the question, what have I done to deserve a plague of snakes?

I suppose I can take comfort in the fact that the chickens did exactly what they were supposed to do. Hef sounded the alarm and the girls went ballistic. Hef got several good jabs in before I caught the snake, which is fairly brave for a 1 lb rooster. David Bowie was not so brave. He headed for the other end of the chicken yard, screaming his fool head off. He gets upset easily. It's not an easy life for him, being the number two rooster. Here you can see that the wind has blown the door of the hutch closed and he's taken it personally.

Of course, Hef is unfazed. He and his ladies just kept foraging through the yard normally, stopping by the wading pool for some crunchy waterlogged bugs. I also dropped a fig in the carport, and they tore that up quickly. Ginny gets most of everything, because she is greedy. I don't discourage this behavior. I find it hilarious that when I yell, "Ginny! Gin-Gin-Ginny!" she comes running. She's convinced that if she doesn't get there first, whatever I'm holding will be eaten by someone else and that is totally unacceptable.

Hef doesn't eat much at all, because he's more interested in finding food for the girls than for himself. The exception to that is when he finds yogurt. Hef loves yogurt and does not care to share it.