This week we are excited to have a guest blogger, Henrietta
the chicken. We’ve been trying to get one of the ladies to contribute a blog
for a while now but they are a busy, shy bunch. With a little coaxing (and
bribing) though we finally succeeded in getting one of chickens to share what a
typical day is like for her. What follows is “Henny’s” perspective, loosely
August 23, 2012.
6 a.m. – OMG won’t that stupid rooster SHUT UP! We’re all
still half asleep! And it’s not even that light out. I just want to sleep. If
I’d been given talons I would sooo tear a strip out of that infernal male
mouthpiece. “Oh look at me, I’m so loud, I’m so important, open the door, I
want out, who cares about all the rest of us still asleep.” Narcissistic much?
6:30 a.m. – Oh, the door is open. Well, I might as well get
going, everyone else is. Holy crap it’s bright out. I am soo not ready to be
out yet… wait there’s the feeder thing, wait, I gotta eat. Get outta my way!
7 a.m. – Ahhh look, that two legged guy brought us some of
those juicy red things with the seeds. Awesome. Hey, move over fatso, there’s
plenty here for all of …. Hey, give me that back; you think you can take some of
the fleshy red stuff from me… I don’t think so, I’ll chase you until.. there
got it back… serves you right…
7:30 a.m. – I just love scratching… there’s got to be a nice
juicy grub here somewhere maybe under… ouch… what was that? Those pains again.
What is that?
8:00 a.m. –
Okay these stabbing pains are getting uncomfortable, I’m thinking I’m
going to hunker down in one of those little boxes that are lined with straw…
crap, there’s a lineup, “Hey, beat it, move over, that’s my spot, I don’t care,
beat it… well I can be just as stubborn as you, that’s it then, I’ll squeeze
right in here beside, see how you like that.” Oh, that’s not too bad actually,
two of us in a box. Kinda cozy.
8:30 a.m. – Oh oh, I’m getting’ those funny feelings, kinda like, oh oo woohhh,
it’s another one of those things! What the… where do they come from? It’s a
nice one though. I’m kinda proud of this one. I have a strange urge to sit on
it for a while… but, nope, think I’ll go get some chow.
8:35 a.m. – Hey
get off the ramp, I’m gonna let the world know what I just laid… “Booccck,
Booccck , BOOCCKKKK, cackle, cackle, bbrrraaaaccccckkk, wopple wopple… oh yea,
I did that, I laid that thing and it’s pretty awesome.
8:45 a.m. – Some of the younger ladies are trying to get in
the coop. I used to stand here at the door and make their lives miserable,
like, you wanna spend some time in a coop, well I’ll tell you when you get your
turn. But now I’ve lost interest in it. Too much effort.
9:30 a.m. – I’m noticing less conflict between the two
generations. When we started there was just the 4 of us and we got along great.
Then that moronic rooster suddenly showed up last spring. What an imbecile. All
bluster and no brains. Walks around like he owns the place, but never really
contributes. And dumb? He does this thing where he flies up on to the gate to
the pen, and falls asleep there are dusk. Really, he’s a few eggs short of a
dozen that one. Luckily he looks pretty or we’d have tossed him out by now.
Male eye candy.
Then this summer another 4 ladies arrived and frankly, the 4
of us weren’t all the thrilled about it. There was a lot of conflict. A lot of
pecking. And chasing. But frankly, we’ve lost interest.
11:00 a.m. – We’re all done with that weird egg laying thing
so that two legged lady with the sunflower on her shirt came and took away all
the eggs, and thanked us profusely. I don’t know why. We’re just glad to get
rid of them. I mean, it gets kinda uncomfortable poppin’ one of those out every
morning. Glad to be rid of it.
Oh, wait, look, she’s bringin’ the oatmeal! Oh man I love
the oatmeal! I gotta go, this is first come first served and the rest of the
gaggle is pretty darn aggressive about getting their share. Get out of my way,
I want me some of this!
12 noon – Hey it’s that guy with the yellow shirt. He’s come
to clean out the bedroom. Now he’s a complete moron. Gets all excited about
cleaning up our crap. Rakes it into buckets and then runs over and dumps it on
his raspberry canes. Sure. Yea. Whatever. If that makes you happy you have fun
with that. Dumb as a cheese ball, he is.
2 p.m. – You know I was getting a little bored with that
food from the feeder thingee, and then that lady in the blue shirt brought out
some of that shredded stuff, and frankly, it’s awesome. She started out
throwing in those big huge zucchini’s just cut in half. It was kinda like “here
ladies you do all the work.” And we kinda poked around in them, pecked out a
few seeds, but really, no way, that’s not our job, so we just left them. And
she got the hint.
Well then she must have been baking something and had grated
a bunch of this stuff up, and gave us the extra and it was like, now that’s
what I’m talkin’ about! It’s awesome! I could eat this shredded stuff all day.
Yummy! I could take a bath in this stuff. Hope this keeps all year!
3 p.m. – There’s that two legged guy with the yellow shirt
again. Oh, he’s chasing something, no wait, he’s got a couple of them in his
hand, hold on, rugby scrum, he just threw them in, I’ve got it, no wait, it
just jumped over there, but there’s a few more over there, grasshoppers, got
one, now run like hell, crap, Penny grabbed that from me, come back you little
creep, give it back, peck peck, there, got it, quick, crunch, swallow, yummy.
Nothing like a mid-afternoon grasshopper to pick up your day!
4 p.m. – Oo, oo, wait what’s that? It’s Watermelon! How
totally awesome is that! OMG I soooo love this season! So, the two-legged guy
seems to spend a lot of time growing stuff. So, we convinced some squirrels to
raid the melon patch. Yea, it’s pretty awesome. They tunnel into a melon and
then the two-legged guy screams and throws stuff and rants, but then he brings
us the watermelon. And they say animals aren’t intelligent. Remind me to save
that squirrel some of those sunflower seeds.
5 p.m. – Hey it’s wading pool time. They just dumped the
water bucket. Oh this is awesome. Wading through the water, pecking at whatever
it stirs up. Sooo coool. Oh, the water bucket is back. Nice. I’m climbin’ on
the side, there, nice and cool, and so clean. One of us better track some mud
in there it. It looks way too clean.
6 p.m. – Oh look, there’s “Feist” with that rooster “The
Colonel”. She’s one of the new ones and she is such a suck up. Just look at her
over there flirting with him. She makes me sick. We thought it was cute how she
never took any guff from him when he arrived. That’s why we call her “Feist”.
But now they’re just the best buddies. So gross. And when he flies up on the
gate she just freaks out. Give me a break.
8 p.m. – Well, it’s been a good day, but you know, I’m
getting’ kinda tired. I think I’ll turn in. I see some of the others are
already in there. Oh, and the moron rooster is back on the gate. You know he’d
be there ’til morning if the two legged ones didn’t pick him up and place him
into the coop. Well he’d be there if the foxes didn’t take him out which
frankly from the gene pool perspective wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Really, and
these males are considered the top of the food chain? I gotta tell ya, that
guy…chicken manure for brains. He thinks he should be on some corn flake box.
The size and scope of the male ego never ceases to boggle my little chicken
brain.
8:15 p.m. – I see the roost is fairly crowded tonight. Think
I’ll sleep on the left-hand side one. That’s where most of us original ladies
camp out for the night, although I can see by the time it gets chilly we’ll all
be packin’ in way closer together.
Oh, and the colorful boy, where does he sleep? He’ll end up
out on top of the laying boxes rather than in here with 8 females. He’s so
elitest. Can hardly wait ’til he comes crawlin’ in some cool fall night and
wants to sleep with us all of the sudden. Gonna be some cacklin’ and squackin’
that night.
8:30 p.m. – Finally got my feet all comfortable on the roost
and tucked comfortably under my considerably fluffy frame. I could probably
stand to lose a few pounds, but frankly, if the two-legged ones are going to
provide me with an endless supply of tasty food all day, I’m going to eat it.
All day, weight be damned. Sleep now. Another Red Letter Day for a busy, humble
chicken here at Sunflower Farm.
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For more information about the guy in the yellow shirt or his books, please visit www.motherearthnews.com/contributors/Cam+Mather