Thursday, August 11, 2011

When chickens wont come home to roost.

Farm fans REJOICE! For today is a day of great celebration in the land of Ruvalcaba Farms!  We have procured dirt! it will be dropped off Saturday morning, hopefully moved into its home by Saturday afternoon and planted Sunday after the farmers market! HUZZAAHH!!!!! pictures and separate entry to follow.  But today's post is about chickens!


So every night, after they have walked around in the yard eating weeds for a few hours, the chickens put themselves to bed.  They all walk up into the coop and cuddle up in the windows.  For whatever reason, they sleep there rather than on the roosting bar.  All of them just troop right on in there... except for Other White Chicken. 


Girlfriend really is her own bird.  She's a chicken among...other chickens.  If you remember from earlier OWC and Polish came to us after our initial five chickens (one of which was Betsy, the rooster).  Even though we only got them a week after the others and they've spent the vast majority of their lives as a group, OWC and Polish tend to stick together.  OWC typically takes longer to leave the coop when they get let out for the night and Polish usually sticks close by until OWC makes her way out.  When all the girls are pecking the weeds near the gate, OWC and Polish are pecking the weeds under the slide.  And more often that not if someone is squawking and tearing across the yard with a chihuahua in hot pursuit, its OWC or Polish.  Its not that they are outcasts really; when Zero attacks one of them, the other girls will eventually swarm him to remind him to back off.  Its just that those two tend to occasionally act like a separate flock within a flock.

So its no surprise that while all the chickens are going inside for the night OWC is roosting on every thing EXCEPT the inside of the coop, with Polish keeping a watchful (if not lone) eye on her from the window.  Not the same window as the others mind you. 

that's plywood that i use to hold the door open while they are outside.

Typically, i let them do their thing outside while i make dinner and usually i come out after dark to find them all tucked in and OWC perched on the brick grill next to the coop, like shes hoping to become dinner later.  You cant see it here but shes usually all hunkered down with her belly on the brick and her head down by her chest.  She fully intends to sleep there every night. At least until someone puts a fire under her and cooks her up. Usually i have to pick her up and put her back inside with her other ladies. 

"Time to  get off the grill and go inside OWC"-Me "Eat me"-OWC
OWC.  A rebel without a cause.  Unless, of course,  "not roosting inside" is a cause.  then shes pretty much a rebel with a cause.  a ridiculous cause. 

"what are we gonna do with that bird?"





1 comment:

  1. So, I am wondering if this choosing to roost in the windows the ladies are doing is going to cause a problem when it is time for them to lay eggs? Are they gonna be dropping eggs from the windows and making little egg messes below the windows or when it is time to lay will they go some place where they can lay without dropping them from on high?

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