Making The Rounds

There are 8 steps up to the deck where I enjoy sitting when I get home from work. Every early evening the supervisor (The chicken formerly known as puppy) makes her rounds. As Jack and I sit and chat about our day, listen to lawnmowers, birds and wind chimes we wait for the click, click, click of chicken feet up the stairs. She has greeted us, checked all of the plants and has now descended. She is the only chicken who maintains this ritual and has declared Evening rounds complete.

The Huckleberry Jump

One never expects to pull into the driveway greeted by chickens jumping up and down. I thought they were just happy to see me, but I would be wrong. As I got out of my car and moved in closer I realized that the huckleberries were ripe and they had cleaned off the lower branches and now had to use their well-rehearsed jumping skills to reach the berries on the upper limbs. Really this has been a skill that they all strive to master due to the fact that the highest jumper gets the treat first and more to boot! The chicken logic…… Use your skills and take them out of the box you may get huckleberries or even better!  

The Big Shakeup!

There seems to be an unexpected shakeup in what has been a seemingly well run coop thus far. As I opened the hatch (on time I might add as chickens run a rather orderly life) there was a cackling push through the hatch that reminded me of Black Friday at Walmart! This might be a good time to add I had an egg drought yesterday!

A chicken on a mission is like a laser to a target and Eenie the brooder raced to a place near the door of the coop where I had placed the plywood used for the first couple of days of Marjorie’s recovery period. Following her was Puppy the curious and rather nosy chicken. As I took a closer look to see what all of the ruckus was about I discovered a first ever outside nest complete with eggs!

As I pondered the chicken logic in this I have come to understand that as the girls roosted in the rafters of their coop they had a bird’s eye view of the special attention and lean-to I had created for Marjorie’s safety. Later, in came a rather large kennel and out went the straw stack that had once been the favorite nesting place! In my limited capacity to understand the rotation theory I had only seen its lack of use lately. Apparently they were near rotation and they had been robbed! 

Today’s lesson from the coop: Don’t ever assume that you have a clue what is important to anyone other than yourself, there is a pretty good chance you don’t have all the details. Ones useless straw stack may be another’s throne!