Blogfromthebarn

High drama at the Barn, plucky feathered survivor joins the Woodland Eggery


Chums from a neighbouring village joined us for a little supper recently and during the conversation mentioned a moonlit raid on their chicken coop. The suspect, possibly something stoatish, left but one survivor, "Dead Hen Squawking" amid a scene of poultry carnage.

Well, one bottle led to another, and another and another and before I knew it I'd offered to bring the bereft hen into our little flock. Before the hangover had faded "Chocolate Thunder" was introduced to Jessie, Cassie and Dollie, cultural mismatch seemed inevitable.

Our three hens, already proven to be very stupid now showed their very unkind side making the bereaved newcomer as welcome as a Mexican pig in outpatients.

Matters weren't improved, for me at least, when, displaying many of the attributes of a feathery Steve McQueen, the new girl made a break for it and engaged me in a forty minute game of hide and beak as she avoided capture. Luckily carnivore cunning won out and a momentary lapse of attention allowed the supreme hunter gatherer to grab her scrawny neck (not the approved method of chicken wrangling). It was very nearly a "one for the pot" moment but she's obviously tougher than she appears and surviving involuntary throttling, was restored to the run and the (frankly brutal) ministrations of her sisters-in-lay.

Hopefully she'll make peace with the other inmates and settle in, I hope so but I've a suspicion that one more attempted escape might result in her being, as the poultry mafiosa so quaintly term it "being left to play wid de foxes".

posted by Stuffy @ 8:00 am