hope is the thing with feathers

We said goodbye to Speedy on Sunday, dropping him off at our kind, kind friends’ house.  They took him in, even though they already have a plethora of roosters.  Mike, the girls, and I took Speedy over and released him in the back.  He took stock of the situation, then proceeded to peck a baby, causing the adopted mama to go after him, which caught the attention of the Alpha rooster, causing him to gang up on poor Speedy as well.  It was a Call of the Wild moment, with  poor Buck being taught the cruelty of nature and his new place in the world, only without sleds and arctic cold, of course.  At least I think so, I don’t think our friends ever mentioned chicken sleds…

The girls were goggle eyed at the chicken fight, Josie exclaimed, “It was the most vicious rooster fight I’ve ever seen!”  Way worse than the normal cock fights we see on Sundays, definitely.

So we dropped off a Speedy.  On Monday morning, at 6am, Harry started crowing.  Eeep!

And guess what?!  Our kind, sweet, generous, did I mention kind? friends said they would take Harry as well and trade him for a bona fide hen!  So trade we did.  Poor Harry, never knew what was coming.  I think the soup pot’s coming for Speedy eventually, but Harry might just be too pretty to kill…  for now.

Our friends brought us a new hen, she was a little skittish at first, but she is warming up to us.  Last night at dusk she attempted to fly from the back porch railing into the kitchen, only to be thwarted by the screen.  It was startling and just a little bit funny.  I present Tulip, the hen.

The kids love her, and I have to admit to loving the chicks as well.  Their sounds are soothing and they are fun to watch.  Yesterday I coaxed Tulip into eating some clover from my hand and it felt like my biggest accomplishment of the day.

Peaky (#2) is still with us.  Sex indeterminate at this point, although we’ve got our fingers crossed that she’s a her.  She is still little and cute, bopping around the garden.  Unless Del is around, at which point she is hiding as best she can.

What am I doing with the chickie?  Putting her in the coop, of course!  No, not the nice one Papi made…  the one I made!

Here, I’ll show you.

See?  Isn’t it beautiful?  Peaky, Peaky, hold still, don’t scratch.

Ah, ah, ah, his nails hurt!

In you go… now stay there.

You will be glad to know that Peaky did escape.  And was captured again.  Then escaped.  Then was captured.  Then… you get the picture.

We should be getting eggs soon!  Which I will document ad nauseam.  You are welcome.