Shadrach's Stories

[Shadrach]

I thought I would share some of the stories I've written about the Can P chickens.
Each story has some chicken 'science' in it. In this story for example one of the messages is chickens don't swim and their feathers aren't really water proof.
Another is why one shouldn't hold a chicken upside down.
A more subtle point is because chickens are so reliant on visual input wearing the same clothing and keeping your head uncovered helps the chicken match you to it's imprint.
I was going out one night, fairly unusual and had got dressed up a bit. Tribe 1 came into H Block (my house) to get out of the rain,looked at me in the strange cloths and ran straight out again.


Fat Bird's Revelations.

There was an expectant silence when I said goodnight to Tribe 1 and closed the door for the night.
Mora was perched closest to the rear door, next was Ruffles, then Fat Bird and finally Able.
Once Ruffles was satisfied I was out of earshot, she shuffled a bit closer to Mora, hopefully out of striking distance of Fat Birds beak and unable to contain her curiosity any longer, asks Fat Bird,
"How was your night with Bucket Boy then?"
Mora craned her neck out as far as she could without toppling off the perch in order to see Fat Bird past Ruffles and said,
"Come on Fat Bird, tell us what happened? Able said you fell in the pond and nearly drowned."
Able, who was busy picking mites off his bad leg hoped on to the roof of the nesting box below the perch and fearing a bit of a scrap might be in the offing, jumped up between Fat Bird and Ruffles. After some foot shuffling, squawks of indignation and a few pecks, order was restored, and Fat Bird who was now standing, said in a tone that forbade any dissent,
"I didn't fall in!"
Able pointed out he was only relaying the information he had received from Jenny the Muscovey Duck, who had told him when he went to escort Fat Bird home at bedtime, she saw Bucket Boy's sister lift Fat Bird out of the pond and carry her away.

'The Pond' is a large concrete clothes washing basin with a sloping corrugated side on which the wet clothes were scrubbed. All the chickens know the water is deep and the slope slippery. No chicken has ever 'fallen' into this basin in the past, and Fat Bird is a very experienced hen.
Chickens don't swim and avoid deep water. Their feathers are not water-proof and when their feathers are soaked, they can't fly, their body temperature drops and their body weight increases, making running much more difficult and flight impossible
"What did happen then Fat Bird?" Mora asked.
Fat Bird, looking slightly shifty, took an intense interest in rearranging her wing feathers and muttered "I can't say."
Realizing that opportunity to increase her status in telling the others the story of that night might be slipping away, Fat Bird gave one final sweeping brush of her wing with her beak and settles down on the perch, while casually mentioning that Bucket Boy takes his feather off when he goes to sleep. Ruffles and Mora's neck shot forward and their eyes widened, their attention riveted on Fat Bird.

Fat Bird mentioned in a deliberately offhand manner that while she was recovering on Bucket Boys soft rocking chair, eating the last of the tuna she had been given off the blanket that had been carefully arranged around her, she saw Bucket Boy go to bed.

Ruffles's beak dropped open and her eyes went all wistful and misty "I love tuna" she sighed, and slipped into a reverie where she attempted to recount all her favorite foods in no particular order.
"Shut up Ruffles" Fat Bird snaps, "the point is he takes his feathers off at night."
"Not sure I could fancy a man with no feathers" Ruffles murmured, still deep in her food reverie.
Fat Bird, eager to get to her most astonishing revelation, sets about telling the whole story of that night.
The others sat silent and listened, eyes wide, slightly in awe of Fat Birds experience, and slightly in awe of Fat Bird, who had after all, cheated certain death and spent the night with Bucket Boy. Fat Bird arrived at the point where she's eating the Tuna, gave Ruffles a threatening glance to forestall any further lapses in Ruffles concentration and continued her tale.

"It must have been late; easily badger time when Bucket Boy finished fussing over me and got me settled for the night. He turned out the lights except one, went to the toilet, and then into the room where his perch is. He took off all his feathers, drops them on the floor, and gets on to his perch."

Fat Bird paused and even in the gloom of the coop you could see that the memory of what happened next still haunted her. "I couldn't believe what happened next. I was close to panicking. How was I going to get out? Did anyone else known where I was? There was no more tuna; no water. I just sat there paralyzed."
Able, Ruffles and More were now on the very edge of their perches with anticipation, necks craned, eyes practically popping out of their heads and in chorus shouted,
"What happened Fat Bird?"
Fat Bird took one more pause, shuddered and said,
He said "goodnight Fat Bird," rolled onto his back and went to sleep.
Pandemonium broke out. Mora who had leaned out the furthest in order to see Fat Bird as she told her tale, slipped of her perch with a brief squawk, and crashed to the floor in an undignified pile of flying feathers and dust. Ruffles, recoiled in horror, shuffled away from Fat Bird barging Able off the perch and on to the roof of the nesting box below banging his beak on the perch during the fall as he stumbled to maintain his balance. Mora, on regaining some composure and realizing what she was about to say was bound to bring an irate Fat Bird down from above her, dived into the nesting box, and warily craning her head out, neck bent so she could see Fat Bird above said. "I don't believe you Fat Bird; everybody knows only dead things lie on their back."

 

[Fields Mountain Farm]

Good story! I got a chuckle or 3 reading it.
Keep em coming... i enjoyed it!
I also read it to my 8 yr old granddaughter who giggled and made comparisons to our own chickens ...

 

[Shadrach]

Fat Bird from the story above in front of the stove drying out.

Pinch and Punch, son and daughter of Blue Spot and Harold (Tribe2) practicing making my life difficult at dusk in the future. They still go up the Magnolia tree at dusk but after some training come down when I call them most nights.

My late email reply excuse “sorry, Fat Bird was on the computer”

Dink, only surviving progeny of Mad Cheepy and the only chicken ever here to survive a Goss Hawk attack. She lived with me for a couple of weeks while she recovered.

Tribe 1 a couple of years ago Able (cock) Ruffles (Grey hen three quarters Maran) Mora (Maran hen) Fat Bird (Maran hen) Where (three quarters Maran hen). 3 in this picture are dead now.

 

[Fields Mountain Farm]

Fat Bird from the story above in front of the stove drying out.

Pinch and Punch, son and daughter of Blue Spot and Harold (Tribe2) practicing making my life difficult at dusk in the future. They still go up the Magnolia tree at dusk but after some training come down when I call them most nights.

My late email reply excuse “sorry, Fat Bird was on the computer”

Dink, only surviving progeny of Mad Cheepy and the only chicken ever here to survive a Goss Hawk attack. She lived with me for a couple of weeks while she recovered.

Tribe 1 a couple of years ago Able (cock) Ruffles (Grey hen three quarters Maran) Mora (Maran hen) Fat Bird (Maran hen) Where (three quarters Maran hen). 3 in this picture are dead now.

That is so awesome! Its nice to "meet" the ladies and gents from the story!
Beautiful birds too i might add.
My granddaughter loved the pics as well and is asking if there will be more to the story!

 

[Shadrach]

That is so awesome! Its nice to "meet" the ladies and gents from the story!
Beautiful birds too i might add.
My granddaughter loved the pics as well and is asking if there will be more to the story!

I'm pleased you and your granddaughter like the story. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
I have lots of stories, they are the building blocks of my book. Unfortunately not many of the stories have happy endings. All life stories end in death.
I'll post another and if I can find them the relevant pictures.

 

[Fields Mountain Farm]

I'm pleased you and your granddaughter like the story. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
I have lots of stories, they are the building blocks of my book. Unfortunately not many of the stories have happy endings. All life stories end in death.
I'll post another and if I can find them the relevant pictures.

We both hope to read more of them. And yes, death is part of life. She has been around farm animals since she was a baby and its a hard lesson but one that needs taught . And it helps children learn to understand grief and how to cope with it. And stories about it open doors for conversation and learning.
So share away!

 

[Shadrach]

Cheepy.
Cheepy was the last chick to be hatched in an incubator at Can P.
Until I introduced natural hatching at Can P, Chris had picked eggs at random and they went into a three egg incubator.. Once the chicks hatched they were transferred into a small wire cage which was kept in the large walk in larder. An infra red lamp was placed over the cage to provide warmth, water and baby chicken food were provided, and at some unspecified time, the chicks were bundled into the garden shed during the night, the home of Tribe 1, and left to fend for themselves.
Chris didn’t know which hen had laid the eggs, which male had fertilized the eggs, or if the eggs were fertile.
It was Cheepy who finally made me determined to put a stop to incubator hatching at Can P.

Cheepy was the only egg to hatch out of 3. There was no mother to teach her how to be a chicken. No tribe to which she could belong, nobody to teach her the skills she needed to survive and no brothers or sisters to keep her company. I would sit with her when I could and talk to her, but for most of her miserable life in that wire cage, nobody answered her distress calls which lasted hour after hour.
Cheepy was an incubator orphan

Cheepy was tiny and when Chris put her in with the Marans in the garden shed I can only imagine she was terrified. It seems likely given Cheepy’s size and plumage, both her mother and father were Bantams and life might have been less solitary if there had been better understanding of the tribal nature of chickens and an available Bantam tribe to which she could have been moved in with.

Somehow Cheepy survived. She grew, but remained the smallest of all the hens here. Her feathers were mainly grey and off white. She had a mop for head feathers which tended to restrict her vision and when wet looked like a gelled punk hair cut.

The much larger Maran hens in Tribe 1 were surprisingly tolerant of Cheepy. Cheepy was allowed her place on the highest perch. I didn’t see any of the much larger Maran hens bully Cheepy and while Cheepy didn’t move around during the day with Tribe 1, mainly out of choice, she didn’t show any obvious signs of being unhappy living with the Marans.

Cheepy spent the first few months of her life trying to discover what she was. For a while Cheepy seemed to think that I was the nearest creature here to a sibling, or parent, I assume because of the hours I spent talking to her when she lived in the wire cage. She never showed any sign of being afraid of me and if I sat down, or crouched she would run up my back and stand on my shoulder, or head. Despite this she was very hard to catch. As far as Cheepy was concerned it was fine if she wanted to sit on your lap but move both hands towards her and she would be gone.

It would be easy to believe Cheepy was mad but in fact Cheepy was a very clever hen. She was extraordinarily inquisitive, very fast and very secretive. For the next six months Cheepy went everywhere and almost always on her own. She spent a few weeks with the sheep, then with the donkeys and finally decided that she probably was a chicken and when she wanted company, or protection, Major was her best bet.

Cheepy had hiding places everywhere. Between 10am and 11am during the summer months all the chickens take shelter from the sun. There are a number of preferred shelter spots used by all the chickens but Cheepy had her own private spots and mid morning Cheepy would just disappear. Fortunately Cheepy didn’t take to the trees; she seemed to prefer the ground.

Cheepy was largely self sufficient. She rarely eat the chicken food provided and lived mainly off what she foraged from the compost heap and around the donkey stable.

Surprisingly, nobody bothered Cheepy. Harold, the senior cock of Tribe 2 who would drive away the other members of Tribe 1 except for Major who was just too big would let Cheepy sit with his tribe under their favorite bush and I’ve seen Harold defend Cheepy from some of the other hens. Despite this Cheepy was a solitary hen and I believe, lonely for most of her life.

Cheepy did make one unusual friend, the only dog here at Can P, Balckie (there were three bitches as well). Blackie spent his waking hours outside and was the law and brains of Can P. Blackie was very tolerant of all the other animals but Cheepy was the only chicken that I’ve seen standing between Blackie’s outstretched front legs as he lay in one of his favorite spots on the edge of the bamboo clump at the beginning of the driveway.

I would look for Cheepy on some days, partly out of curiosity and partly to make finding her if she didn’t turn up at dusk easier. Cheepy liked open spaces; she liked to be able to see around her. Long grass was always worth investigating, particularly if it caught the breeze that blows up the valley most of the year. I used to think some of the places she chose to rest in were suicidal but as I came to understand more about the behavior of both chickens and predators I realized that as long as Cheepy stayed perfectly still she might not be noticed, maybe mistaken for a rock, or some strange shrub. I have almost trodden on her a number of times when searching for her.

Cheepy started laying eggs at around seven months old. I don’t think Cheepy laid a single egg in a coop, instead all those secret places Cheepy had found in the preceding months became Cheepy’s egg hoarding places. Cheepy taught me, eventually (my own stupidity still surprises me) that a couple of days before hens actually sit on the eggs they’ve accumulated, when approached by another chicken, they hold their wings away from their bodies and make them selves look as big and fearsome as possible and make a regular clucking sound much the same as mothers do when protecting their chicks.

Cheepy always gave lots of warning. She would walk around puffed out clucking madly telling the other hens she had an enormous pile of eggs and she was going to sit on them. Cheepy was going to be an important hen. Cheepy was going to have chicks, lots of chicks. Cheepy was going to be a mother. Two to three days later Cheepy would vanish.

Conventional wisdom has it that hens choose dark secluded spots to lay there eggs; not Cheepy. In the next couple of months Cheepy stockpiled eggs in a number of her various hiding places, I spent hours searching for her and usually found her on a bank only partially concealed by a clump of long grass or wedged under a bush proudly sitting on a large pile of eggs. Sometimes it took a couple of days to find her and this was only possible because Cheepy would leave her pile of eggs for food, water and a dust bath at some point every day and I would wait for her to appear and follow her when she returned to her eggs. Once Cheepy’s hiding place had been discovered she was returned to Tribe 1’s home minus her eggs once it had got dark.

I hadn’t seen Cheepy mate with any of the cocks except Major who she would crouch for if he just looked at her, so it was unlikely that many of her eggs were fertile. This all changed one day when a procession of large black Marans with Oswald bringing up the rear marched down the track from the sheep field led by Cheepy! Cheepy had found a man! It seems to me that the next couple of months were the happiest days of Cheepy’s life. I watched Cheepy spending her days with Oswald and the Maran hens with some misgivings. Cheepy could often be seen leading a procession of Marans from one of her special places to another, half running to keep ahead of the others who took much longer strides. Cheepy would crouch for Oswald, Oswald would oblige and much to my surprise none of the Maran hens pecked at Cheepy which is normal when a junior hen tries to mate with the Tribe’s male. I just wanted to pick Cheepy up and say to her “Cheepy, Oswald won’t look after you when the chicks arrive, you’re not a Maran, you’re not one of his tribe and you’re a very junior hen.” I don’t think Cheepy cared, she seemed determined to hatch chicks.

Eventually Cheepy decided she had enough eggs and vanished. I looked in the places that I knew she favored but couldn’t find her. I spotted her briefly the next day and tried to follow but she disappeared into the thick brush and brambles on the track bank and I lost her. Chris happened to notice her as he was driving down the track one evening. Cheepy was surveying the world from a position half way up the bank that runs parallel to the track that leads to Can P. She had made a nest in some long grass where she could view the track and field below, and if she craned her neck, along the bank in both directions. She was sitting on top of a pyramid of eggs. How she survived the two nights and days it took to find her is incredible. To a hawk sitting in the woods in the bank that rises from the far side of the field she would have been in plain sight, let alone any that flew down the valley.

When we recovered Cheepy that night she had twenty two eggs!

I decided to let Cheepy sit and put her in the hospital/maternity unit with twelve of her eggs.

From watching Cheepy trying to organize her eggs on the hard floor of the maternity unit it became apparent that she was having great difficulty maneuvering the eggs into positions where she could maintain the correct temperature. She would get two or three under her and then some others would roll away. Even for a large hen keeping twelve eggs in the optimal position on a flat hard floor would be difficult, for Cheepy it was impossible and she would be constantly scratching at the floor trying to make a hollow to contain the eggs. I took the hard floor out and within a couple of hours Cheepy had dug the right sized hollow and had all the eggs gathered together held in the hollow firmly enough to allow her to turn them without any rolling away. Cheepy didn’t need any encouragement to get off the eggs to eat, drink and dust bath and the twenty one days passed without any of her eggs getting broken.

I first heard Cheepy talking to her eggs on day nineteen. On day twenty one sitting next to the maternity unit I could hear eggs cracking as Cheepy quietly clucked away as the chicks emerged. It went on all day. Every now and then a chicks head would peer out from under Cheepy’s wing or from behind her tail feathers and I noticed with some alarm that each head looked different. Cheepy was hatching an army. By the next morning Cheepy had hatched ten chicks, five males and five females, and was, as time would tell, going to be a very important hen

Cheepy had problems looking after ten chicks from the outset. It really didn’t matter how hard she worked looking for food, there was never enough and at the end of a day scratching for food Cheepy was exhausted and hungry. Then there was the problem of how to get ten chicks under her wings at night. For the first week when I looked in at night there would be a wiggling, cheeping, squabbling pile of chicks with Cheepy almost perched on top.

By the end of week two Cheepy had started to peck the chicks in frustration. I put in a perch hoping that might ease the problem. Cheepy sat on the perch but wouldn’t let any of the chicks sit alongside.

At the end of week three, Cheepy abandoned her chicks. One problem I had not foreseen was the chicks, having Oswald (Maran who never showed any interest in Cheepy or his children from the day Cheepy sat) as their father, were growing fast and were going to be larger than Cheepy within a couple more weeks. One chick (Dink) got pecked so badly on her neck that she bears the scar today.

I built an extension to the maternity unit but in the evenings when I went to shut the chickens in for the night, Cheepy would drive the chicks out and within a couple of days trying to get into the maternity unit at night became so difficult that the chicks started to perch up the trees. Collecting ten chicks out of trees and bushes at night isn’t an easy task.

During the day Cheepy screamed and pecked any of the chicks that came near her and went off on her own, usually to the donkey stable where she would hide until the chicks gave up trying to follow her.

Cheepy’s army of chicks ran wild. They went everywhere as a gang and grew to be larger than the Bantams whose territory they were hatched in and larger than Cheepy. The males would try to ambush any Bantam female and rape her if Harold, or I, didn’t get there in time. For a while it was total pandemonium.

Eventually a predator took one chick and then another, I re-homed two pairs and we eat two of the males leaving two females, Dink and Fan after three and a half months.

If Cheepy had been housed with her own kind at the outset she might have been able at some point taken the chicks back to the tribe home and the senior cock and hen would have ‘disciplined’ the chicks if Cheepy couldn’t. Cheepy couldn’t return to Tribe 1’s home, she wasn’t a tribe member even though she lived with them, nor could she turn to Tribe 2 for support because although Harold had been tolerant of Cheepy, they weren’t his children and Cheepy had never lived with Tribe 2.

Cheepy returned to her mainly solitary lifestyle. She would still scream at her remaining two daughters if they approached and in general avoided Oswald and the Maran hens. She spent a large part of her day in the Bantams territory foraging for food in the compost heap, sheltering from the sun behind the donkey stable and in the rockery in front of the main house. There are some steps leading from the terrace in front of the main house to the vegetable garden and a small wall at the top of the steps under a fig tree. This was Major’s favorite daytime place. He would spend a large part of the day here watching the various comings and goings of humans and other animals alike and on the rare occasions that Cheepy got harassed by the other chickens she would go and stand by Major for protection. I’ve never really understood the relation ship between Major and Cheepy but he never drove her away and would occasionally drop food for her. I would often sit on the steps near Major and Cheepy would appear like a ghost from nowhere beside me sometimes climbing on my shoulder where she would fidget and groom, but mostly hoping for some walnut, or other treat I usually have in my pocket.

The extension to the maternity unit had been moved and altered to house Dink, Fan and Gedit and at dusk Cheepy would return to the maternity unit to sleep alone. Cheepy would be the last to perch for the night. She would watch the rest of the chickens go into their house from a clump of small bushes and when it was quiet Cheepy would do her inspection tour. She would walk around the maternity unit, first in one direction and then the other. Next she would hop onto the roof and peer into the closed section. Then she would hover at the door of the closed in run and eventually jump onto the perch. Sometimes this sequence would be repeated and I would be standing there tapping my foot telling her to get on with it and if I went to close the run door before she had fully settled on the perch she would fly out of the door and we would go through the whole performance again.

To the best of my knowledge Cheepy never laid another egg.

I had to take a trip to England later that summer and returned to find Cheepy with an eye infection and Dandy, another hen, paralyzed. It seems nobody else had noticed Cheepy’s eye infection and when I insisted she should see a vet there was some obvious resistance to the idea that any chicken was worth a vet bill.

Cheepy got to see the vet and the vet prescribed some eye drops and I bathed the surrounding area with thyme water. The infection subsided for a week or two and returned, got treated again, subsided only to return again

It was during the period of Cheepy’s eye infection and Dandy’s paralyses that it fully dawned on me that persuading Chris and Jordan to take proper care of all the creatures they tended to acquire here at Can P was going to be an uphill struggle and was likely to cause considerable friction between me and the rest of the household.

A notable example of this is when Cheepy’s eye infection was particularly bad Cheepy showed marked reluctance to leave the safety of an outside corner of the donkey shed which was shaded by a fig tree and further protection given by a steep bank behind and a stock net fence in front. I would often find her here at dusk and would have to either escort her, or catch and carry her, up to the maternity unit at dusk..

My concern for the chickens in particular became a constant point of irritation to my sister Jordan was more often than not I would be outside making sure the chickens and Muscovey ducks got safely home and shut in for the night when supper would be on the table. Farmers are used to this and meal times are adjusted to suit the requirements of the particular animals kept. Of course, on farms and many small holdings the animals provide income and therefor have value, here at Can P ‘other things’ have always taken priority over animal care and the ‘family supper’ which can last for a couple of hours particularly when there are guests is one of those ‘other things’.

On this particular night I had coaxed the recalcitrant chickens out of the Magnolia tree and into their respective houses but Cheepy had not appeared at her usual spot in the bushes. There were guests for dinner and as I was about to go and look for Cheepy, when Jordan came out of the double doors at the front of the house looking irritated and informed me that dinner was ready and everyone else was sat at the table. I explained that I hadn’t got Cheepy yet and would join them once I had finished getting the chickens shut in for the night. Jordan looked at me decidedly annoyed and spat out ‘for gods sake it’s just a chicken’ and stomped off back into the house in a bit of a strop.

It was almost dark when I collected Cheepy from her usual spot by the donkey stable. Her eye was partially closed and looked swollen again. When I picked her up I could feel her crop was empty and I carried her up the steps to the terrace chatting to her quietly as I fed her pieces of walnut and grape. As I pulled a grape from the vine that hangs over the kitchen doors I looked into the kitchen where everyone else was sat down for supper, it sounded to me like everyone was talking at once. The kitchen table was laden with food and bottles of wine and as I stood there with Cheepy cradled in one hand I couldn’t help making a comparison to a chapter in George Orwell’s book Animal Farm where Boxer and the other farm animals looked in at the pigs in the farmers kitchen sitting around the farmers table eating and drinking while they stood hungry and neglected outside. All that was missing it seemed to me was the notice by the door that said;

‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’.

Cheepy’s eye infection subsided for a while but I don’t believe she ever fully recovered.

One day later that year I found Cheepy on the old driveway close to the compost heap with her head missing, the rest of her lying in a pile of bloody feathers. From the feather trail it looks as if a Weasel or Fagina had jumped on her from a pine tree that some of the chickens perch in on the opposite side of the old driveway to the compost heap. The predator had dragged Cheepy across the drive, bitten her head off and left the rest. Cheepy’s mop of head feathers had always had the potential to restrict her vision, particularly to things above her head and maybe with the added disadvantage of limited vision in the one infected eye, Cheepy just didn’t see the threat in time.

I have lots of Cheepy memories but the following story is one of my favorites.

I was sitting on the bench outside the kitchen double doors one evening waitng for Tribe 2 to return from the foraging trip in the sheep field. Hazel, one of the house dogs now getting old and sleepy was lying outside on the patio tiles half asleep in evening sun and the cooler evening air. Cheepy emerges from one of her hiding places in the rockery below and walks around the dozing Hazel at a 30 cm distance as if inspecting a particularly obstinate rock in a dust bath. I don’t think Cheepy liked Hazel much. It seemed every time Cheepy had unearthed something interesting in the compost pile Hazel would arrive and steal it. It was always Hazel’s shit in Cheepy’s newly dug dust bath and most recently some scraps that Cheepy had her eye on thrown out from the kitchen had been eaten by Hazel who in Cheepies eyes could do with losing a few kilo’s.

Cheepy made another circuit stopping 10cm or so from Hazels nose and looked carefully at Hazels closed eyes. She then walks quickly to Hazels rear end, takes a few steps forward and sinks her beak into Hazels bum as hard as she could. Hazel wakes up with a start and spins round to confront Cheepy. Much to my amazement Cheepy just stood there as if to say ”what are you going to do about that then?” Hazel looked at Cheepy for a moment then lazily scratched her belly with a back leg and wandered off.

Cheepy did get her wish and did become a very important hen. Her daughter Dink went on to become the founder of two more tribes here at Can P and is one of the most extraordinary chickens I have known.

Points.

Chickens learn from watching their mother and their siblings and later, other tribe members. Before chicks hatch they are aware of their siblings and familiar with the sound of their mother. While chickens are born with certain abilities such as the scratching the ground for food and it seems awareness of some predators, other behavior, particularly social behavior is learnt. A chicken doesn’t know it’s a chicken unless there are other chickens to compare itself to.

While traditional style nest boxes with hard floors or mesh floors may be fine for egg laying they are less than ideal for a hen who is hatching eggs. Most hens and cocks scratch at the ground when making a nest site. This is to create a hollow in which to lay the eggs. Bare earth is better but earth with growing vegetation is better still. The cocks and hens can then make a hollow, and/or form a basket in which to lay the eggs with the added advantage that long grass/vegetation provides cover and some protection from predators.

A sitting hen turns her eggs and pushes those with a higher temperature to the outskirts of the clutch in order to keep as many eggs as possible within the required temperature range. A hollow also allows the hen to sit on top of the eggs rather than have the eggs spread around her. This is particularly important for some of the heavier breeds because it allows them to place their legs directly underneath them rather than splayed out at the sides which can cause tendon strain. It is also important during the last three days of incubation that the eggs remain orientated with the unhatched chicks head uppermost.

Not all hens prefer dark enclosed spaces to lay their eggs. What would seem most important is the hen feels the spot is secure; the level of light would seem to be less importance. (See Ruffles, Donk, Fat Bird, Mel, Fudge, Pinch)

Chickens don’t have teeth, they swallow what they eat unprocessed. The ingested food gets pushed down their throats into a storage organ called the Crop. You can feel a chickens crop if you run your hand down their neck to their breast. As the chicken eats the crop swells and a mucus that partially softens the food is released. Below the crop is another organ called the Gizzard. The Gizzard is the organ that grinds the food into a pulp that is suitable for the rest of their digestive system to process. The Gizzard is the chickens’ teeth. The Gizzard is made up of muscles that work against each other to produce a grinding effect. The Gizzard needs a certain amount of hard particles in it to rub against the harder foodstuffs such as seeds and corn in order to function properly. This is why chickens need grit in their diet. Both the crop and gizzard are constantly working unlike in some mammals where the digestive system rests, usually when sleeping. The presence of food in the crop encourages the secretion of the softening mucus. If a chicken goes to sleep with an empty crop, the gizzard stays active but grinds the grit against the membrane that covers the gizzard muscles and because mucus isn’t being secreted the gizzard and the grit become dry. This is very uncomfortable for the chicken and can damage the gizzard. A chicken with an empty crop doesn’t sleep well which also has adverse affects on their health.

When hens sit on their eggs they go into a type of trance. If you pick a hen up who had been sitting on eggs and place her on the ground she will remain in the sitting position and it takes some encouragement to get her to stand; food usually does the trick. There is some mechanism that releases the hen from the trance and unlocks her legs when she leaves the eggs to feed and bath, possibly hunger.

You can slide your hand underneath some sitting hens without getting pecked provided you keep your hand low as you approach. Raise your hand and you’ll get pecked.

Hens that lay eggs away from the chicken houses don’t generally pick a spot more than 50 metres from their usual feeding point.

Hens about to sit make fast clucking sounds and puff themselves up to look as threatening as possible when another chicken approaches.

The day before a hen sits she eats noticeably more than usual.

Chickens don’t see well in the dark and this makes it easier to handle them after dusk.
Cheepy’s attack on Hazels rear end was premeditated. This would seem to suggest that chickens have the ability to plan and carry out a course of action. (See Rosehip)

 

[tjo804]

Great story

 

[Shadrach]

Harold loved Blue Spot. There should be absolutely no doubt in the readers mind about this. If there is one true love story to be told about all those that have lived and died at Can P including the humans Harold and Blue Spot is it.

Harold didn’t have any of the characteristics that the majority of chicken literature site as being what makes a male successful in passing on his genes. Harold wasn’t the biggest, his comb was a crown and not as large or noticeable as the straight combs of the Maran males. He wasn’t at all aggressive, not particularly good at finding treats for Blue Spot; what Harold was was a gentleman. Harold seemed to have time for everyone. His tolerance and persistence was staggering.

All the Bantam hens seemed to adore him and I have a sneaking suspicion that even Fat Bird the senior Maran hen had a soft spot for him.

Harold and Bluespot. Harold is waiting for Blue Spot to show him their first son and daughter who are under her wings

Until the two nights told in this story Harold hadn’t spent a single night away from Blue Spot in four and a half years. Harold had others wives it’s true but Blue Spot had, as far I know, never so much as looked at another cock.
Blue Spot got raped on two occasions and both times she aborted. The first time I didn’t see the rape and arrived to find Blue Spot standing on the rockery with her vent open and her vagina hanging out. I watched horrified as she pushed and squeezed her vent in pulsing motions. I thought there was something terribly wrong with her and absolutely no idea what I should do. I don’t know how long she had been doing this before I arrived but after maybe a minute she sucked her vagina back in and carried on as if nothing had happened.

I watched Blue Spot very carefully for the rest of that day and could see no signs of ill health or of any distress.

I got in touch with a contact I had made who is a specialist in fowl physiology and asked if she knew what it was I had witnessed. Apparently some fowl have the ability to prevent unwanted sperm from fertilising an egg and what I had seen was Blue Spot doing exactly this. My knowledge on this subject is very limited but as I understand it the hen dries out her vagina which makes it difficult for the sperm to travel to the ovary and exposing the sperm to daylight damages it by drying it out. (Not the greatest scientific explanation)
The second time I saw the rape and Blue Spot did exactly as before.
I’ve written about the rapes and the abortions because it’s not often mentioned in literature about chickens, and it shows Blue Spot was determined that any chicks she may hatch would be hers and Harold’s.

Harold’s third wife (Mini Minx) had hatched two clutches of eggs by this time and Harold wasn’t the father of any of the chicks; the most likely candidate was Major the senior cock from Tribe 1 which Mini Minx lived with when I arrived at Can P. When the time came for Mini Minx to return to her tribe after the second hatching the chicks weren’t welcome; Harold knew the chicks weren’t his and so I believe did Blue Spot. The two chicks got named Twitch (male) and Gedit (female) and they took up residence in the extension (now empty) that I had built for Cheepy’s army. Twitch got killed and eaten by human predators and for some months Gedit lived on her own in the extension.
(I had by this time built enough spare coop capacity to allow the chickens choice in who they lived with.)

Gedit wasn’t a Bantam, and she didn’t seem to have any inclination to go and live with her father Major and the other Marans.

Gedit grew to be a big hen, the Maran genes being dominant, and developed a beautiful grey plumage with the same copper gold streaks that the Marans have around her neck. Gedit was slow and graceful in her movements, easy going and a target for all the cockerels, so much so that for certain periods when there have been lots of cockerels here I’ve had to carry her to the terrace in the mornings when I let everyone out for the day to avoid the morning hormone rush of the cockerels.

There is one rather unusual thing about Gedit, to the best of my knowledge she’s never laid an egg.



One evening I went to shut everyone in for the night and when I checked Tribe 2’s coop to make sure everyone was there, Harold wasn’t. Harold was always there, every night Harold inspects the coop before the hens go in. Blue Spot was there and Harold was always with Blue Spot. I think many readers here will know that feeling when a hen or cock can’t be found at bedtime; it’s almost panic.


I searched in the trees above the coops, checked the compost heap, had a look in some of the favourite dust bath sites in case he had dozed off in the bath and was about to head off down one of the banks closest to the coops to continue the search and as I passed the hospital extension coop where Gedit lived I caught a glimpse of Harold sitting on the perch right next to Gedit. My first instinct was to pick Harold up and put him in with his tribe but something about the way he was sitting next to Gedit and the complete unusualness of the situation made me stop and think. There was no way Harold was lost. I had seen him around most of the day and he hadn’t shown any sign of being ill. There was nothing in his Tribes coop that could have driven him out; even Blue Spot at her most foul tempered wouldn’t drive Harold out of his home.

I stood outside the hospital extension for a while watching Harold and Gedit. Harold was perched so close to Gedit he was practically under her wing. Given the size difference (Gedit being twice the size of Harold) one would have been forgiven for thinking Gedit was sheltering an abnormally well developed chick. Harold had his head lowered and was making the coo cooing sounds that Cocks make to hens that indicates friendly intent. Gedit seemed completely calm and occasionally tilted her head and looked down at Harold as mothers do with their chicks.

I took another look in Tribe 2’s coop (Harold’s home) and everything was as normal. Blue Spot wasn’t calling for Harold; she does, and when she does it’s in no uncertain manner so I shut Tribe 2 for the night and took one last look at Harold and Blue Spot before I closed them up for the night.

The next morning when I opened everyone up things went back to normal. Harold came out and went straight over to Blue Spot and they and the rest of the tribe went about their business. A few times that day I saw Gedit with Tribe 2 but mostly Gedit spent the day sheltering from the sun under a bush in the rockery.

On the evening of the next day I was by the coops earlier than usual so I wouldn’t miss anything.

When Tribe 2 settled for the night Harold did his coop inspection as usual and all the hens made their way in and found their places with the usual amount of squawking and pecking. Gedit was perched on a strut that formed part of the run frame in front of the coop entrance.

Harold came out and perched next to Gedit for a while making cooing sounds and went back into the coop, Gedit remained on the strut. Harold appeared at the door to the coop and made more cooing noises and eventually Gedit went into Tribe 2’s coop. I was expecting a major squabble to break out but Gedit settled in with the minimum of fuss on one side of Harold with Blue Spot on the other. I visited the coop a few times during that night. I was completely fascinated by what I had seen. The coop remained quiet throughout the night and the night Gedit returned to the extension and Harold to his Tribe coop.

So, what was it I had seen?
There is no doubt in my mind that what I had seen was Harold inviting Gedit to join Tribe 2.
As far as I know, Harold was not related to Mini Minx, although the Bantams arrived at Can P at least a year before me and six arrived together, given by someone no longer able to keep them.

Mini Minx was Harold’s third wife but it wasn’t until Mini Minx’s third hatching that the parentage of the chicks could have involved Harold.
True, Gedit is gorgeous, did Harold fall in love.?
Why didn’t it work? There is no way Harold could have introduced another hen into the tribe without Blue Spots blessing, especially a comparative giant like Gedit.
Gedit continued to live on her own until Dink and Fan moved in and she has remained firm friends with Dink to this day. Gedit is now a member of Tribe 3 and the most senior hen in the tribe.

 

[Shadrach]

Dandy and Skunk.

Dandy was one of four siblings hatched by Mini Minx (Bantam). Her father was most probably Major (Maran) the head of Tribe 1. Dandy and her siblings were the first natural hatchings at Can P.

Dandy was hatched in a wire cage kept in the car port. As soon as it was clear her mother Mini Minx wasn't going to hatch any more eggs, Dandy was moved to coop T1, along with her siblings and mother. Dandy spent the first seven weeks of her life being cared for by Mini Minx and Random. (See Mini Minx and Random)

Major's genes were dominant in Dandy and she developed Maran blue/black plumage with copper/gold streaks in her neck feathers and an upright comb. Dandy was right footed and had a faster ground scratching movement than the pure Marans. Dandy grew to be almost as big as the other Marans but her bantam genes meant she was more inclined to take flight. Dandy seemed to be a well adjusted young hen. She quickly learnt who to avoid, where and when to go for food. She was the first of the clutch to start independent exploration of her surroundings, her two sisters tending to follow her lead.

Mini Minx abandoned her chicks at around 7 weeks. She moved in with Harold (Tribe 2) leaving Dandy and her siblings in Coop T1. She didn’t encourage Dandy and her siblings to follow her into Tribe 2’s Coop nor did she return to her original tribe home to introduce the chicks to the Marans in Tribe 1. One night a few days later the Dandy and her siblings were quietly moved into Tribe 1’s coop. Dandy and Where (one of Dandy’ sisters) with their obvious Maran genes were accepted by the rest of Tribe 1 with few problems and they quickly established their place in the Tribes hierarchy; Dandy becoming senior to Where and junior to Mora and Fat Bird.

While Dandy lived in Tribe 1's coop, Oswald (Maran Male junior to Major) looked after all the Maran hens. When their coop was opened in the morning Oswald would head off with the Maran hens for the day while Major (the largest of the Maran males) did his rounds. Oswald would respond to Dandy's escort call and cover her on the rare occasions she laid an egg away from the coop. I never saw Dandy pick a fight. She rarely pecked at Where her junior and being of an easy going temperament, rarely got on the wrong side of Mora and Fat Bird her seniors.

For a few months Dandy led what seemed to me a contented and stable life in this group.
Both Dandy and Where, Dandy’s sister, laid their eggs in the egg box attached to the side of Tribe 1’s coop. When Dandy decided to sit on the eggs Where continued to lay her eggs alongside Dandy’s and eventually in the disputes that followed regarding who should sit on the eggs a couple of eggs got broken. While Dandy left the coop on a regular basis to feed and dust bath, the possibility of returning to find her sister sitting on the eggs meant Dandy tended not to leave the eggs unattended for very long and probably eat less than she needed for the days to come when the chicks take priority.

Can P was busy on the day Dandy was due to hatch her eggs. I should have checked on Dandy that morning but it was mid afternoon when I finally went to see how things were going.

When I opened the garden shed door and looked into the nesting box Dandy was wedged into one corner and in front of her were two broken eggs with two dead chicks hanging halfway out with what looked like bite marks on parts of their bodies.. On the floor was another partially eaten dead chick with rat droppings close by.

While rats are very unlikely to take on an adult chicken, they will take eggs and if given the chance, newly hatched chicks. I was to learn more about this at a later date when another hen called Dink sat on her eggs on top of a palm tree stump.

At this time there was no provision for emergency accommodation for chickens. Fortunately I had found a 60cm x 60cm plywood cube at the local dump a few weeks earlier and after hurriedly making a secure door with a wire mesh insert and placing it on trestles in the car port, Dandy was installed in it with three remaining eggs. Within an hour Dandy hatched the sole survivor of the clutch, Skunk.

The next day I checked on Dandy and Skunk at regular intervals providing food and water when necessary. While Dandy couldn’t walk about in such a confined space, she could stand and did stand and allowed little Skunk to come out from underneath her to eat and drink. A couple of hours later I went to change the water and food and Dandy didn’t get up and lunged at the food from her sitting position. When I gently slid my hand under her body and carefully lifted her to standing position she would collapse in a heap when I removed my hand. It became apparent after a few more attempts to get her to stand that Dandy’s legs had become paralyzed.

In the following weeks I tried to discover what I could about paralyzes in chickens. There are some harrowing stories on the internet where peoples much loved hens have become paralyzed. There are two recognised causes of chicken paralyzes; Marek’s disease and paralyzes caused by extreme stress. Marek’s disease once caught is terminal. There is a vaccination that is partially effective. What little verifiable information I could find regarding paralyzes due to stress gave varying outcomes; some died, usually at the owners hand, or by request at a vets and some recovered. Recovery times varied enormously. I read some stories where the hen recovered the next day, in other stories it took weeks. However, none of the stories I could find gave much useful information on what could be done to maximize the chances of recovery should it be possible.

I don’t know what caused Dandy’s paralyzes. What I believe is someone wanting to see and touch a baby chicken opened the temporary coop and tried to grab little Skunk. Maybe they succeeded and given the trauma Dandy had already been through this was too much stress to cope with.

I was due to leave for England that evening and backing out of the trip at the very last moment didn’t seem to be an option.

What I found when on my return from England when I went to look for Dandy was Dandy and Skunk had been moved from the converted box in the car port to a triangular coop with a covered run I had built for hens with chicks in mind. Dandy was still paralyzed. Nobody had thought to mention that Dandy’s condition was unchanged, not when I got picked up from the station and not when I arrived at Can P.

I also found that Cheepy (see Cheepy) had an eye infection. Nobody had taken either to a vet.

We are fortunate in having a vet called Gloria who specializes in birds and fowl in a town close by. After examining Dandy (little Skunk came along too) she ruled out Marek’s disease and attributed the paralyzes to stress. She thought there was a chance that Dandy would recover but usually such chickens are killed. Very few people can be bothered to look after a lame chicken. I was going to be one of those very few. If Dandy had a chance of recovering I was determined to make sure she got it.

Gloria advised a vitamin supplement and I made up a special diet comprising walnuts, oats, yogurt, fresh greens, sesame seeds, corn, combined with the growers’ pellets that all the chickens here get. Every morning I would get Dandy into the covered run with Skunk bouncing around her and encourage her to eat. She got vitamins in her water and in her food and if she hadn’t consumed the prescribed dose by the end of the day, squeezed into her beak with a syringe.

Having read a little about people recovering from paralyze I devised an exercise program for Dandy. My thinking was that if Dandy carried out what would be normal movements the brain and nerves would start talking to each other again. One of the most natural leg movements for a chicken is scratching the ground looking for food.

I would sit on the ground with my legs outstretched and place Dandy between them. With one hand I would support her body and with the other carefully make her claw follow an oval trajectory touching the ground in each cycle; ten rotations per leg. I would let her rest a while and lift each wing in turn making flapping motions. I got quite adept at this after a while and found I could slide my first finger and little finger under the wing shoulder and flap both together while supporting Dandy in the standing position.

Next I would stand Dandy between my legs and move each foot forward to mimic walking while supporting her body. I found that her balance was more affected on one side and Dandy would push one wing out as that foot moved foreword. I needed three hands! At the end of each session I would try to encourage Dandy to take a step on her own. I would move one leg forward and remove my supporting hand whereupon Dandy would nosedive into the ground with one wing flapping and lie there giving me reproachful looks.

Not once did Dandy try to peck me and I’m convinced she knew I was trying to help. I did on the occasions that she nosedived particularly awkwardly get an indignant squawk but throughout the weeks this program went on for Dandy spoke with her eyes. She knew she was helpless and the trust she placed in me was astonishing.

I tried, and most days succeeded, in getting Dandy out for “therapy” twice a day. The sessions lasted about twenty minutes and I could see Dandy found the sessions exhausting and dispiriting. Skunk on the other hand seemed to think the whole business was wonderful and sat on my leg chirping encouragement, sat on my head and played queen of the castle and as time went by, began to explore her local surroundings. Dandy’s concern about Skunks antics became such a distraction for her that concentration became a problem and I split the sessions; a bit with Skunk out and a bit with her in the coop, much to Skunks disgust.

Much to my surprise none of the other chickens seemed at all perturbed by these sessions. Major came by on his rounds and stood a metre away watching from time to time and only once came right up to Skunk and put his head to the ground, his eye about two centimeters away from Skunk’s, stood like this for maybe ten seconds and walked away.

After about three weeks of sessions both Dandy and I were on the point of giving up. You could see in her eye and her demeanor that she was losing hope. Her head would go down, the stabilizing wing flap became less vigorous and she would look at the coop more and more towards the end of the sessions as if to say, let me be.

I too was losing hope and trying not to resign myself to Dandy’s inevitable death. Skunk would grow up and want to be out with his tribe leaving his mum lying paralyzed in a cage. This was not a life I would want for any creature. My entreaties to Dandy to try just that little bit harder became more desperate and at the end of the sessions when I lifted her back into the coop I was close to tears.

One morning at the beginning of week four Dandy took a step. I had my hand underneath her for support and had moved one leg forward as usual. When I removed my hand Dandy lurched forward bringing the trailing foot level with the leading, her wing shooting out almost as if in surprise. Dandy crashed to the ground, but as she lay there she looked me straight in the eye and I saw a spark of triumph. Dandy and I found new hope in that moment.

It was slow and frustrating. The wing shooting out now became what unbalanced her as she tried to move the leading leg forward again. Eventually I found a position where I could prevent the wing coming out without supporting her and without pushing her over. It took another three days before the leading foot took a further step. Each time Dandy would crash to the ground, each time I would get her up and we would try again. One unsteady step became two, then three then the distance from my ankle until her head would crash into my lap and I became concerned for her neck. From then on I knelt in front of Dandy and shuffled backwards as she took unsteady but determined steps towards me. Now I could catch her before she fell and she would sit for a while exhausted as I stroked her and fed her pieces of walnut. Skunk had feathers now and hurtled around the pair of us cheeping loudly, suddenly diving off behind the coop and out of Dandy’s sight. The need to keep Skunk in sight seemed to drive Dandy to greater efforts and before many more days passed by Dandy could walk around the coop and sit resting with Skunk in sight.

For the next two weeks I became Dandy’s minder. While she could walk a reasonable distance she certainly wasn’t able to run for cover, or defend herself and Skunk from predators, or fight other hens that came to close. The final goal for Dandy, Skunk and me was to be when she returned to her tribes home with Skunk and took her place on the high perch, preferable with Skunk beside her; a one hundred metre uphill journey, mostly over open ground, with a one and a half metre jump/scramble at the end.

The first few days were spent around the vegetable garden. Skunk found one of the many holes in the fence and spent much of the day digging for food while Dandy sat under a plant, or bush watching and slowly regaining her strength.

Next came the dangerous stretch from the vegetable garden, up the old driveway beside the rockery. This is a favorite attack path for the hawks. They come up the old driveway from the donkey field, low to the ground, at full speed. It takes the hawk less than three seconds to go from invisible to in your face. For a chicken to reach the safety of the rockery shrubs they must stop and jump; that’s all the time the hawk needs. If the chicken heads to the other side of the drive they have rocks as obstacles and a weed strewn slope to negotiate before they can reach substantial cover. It’s not until a chicken is alongside the bamboo clump that their survival chances improve; make the clump and they will probably survive.

I was walking behind Dandy and Skunk on the day they reached the end of the rockery and had the drive and parking area in front of them. Oswald, Fat Bird, Ruffles and Where were making their way down the track towards the car port. For some unknown reason I expected these members of Dandy’s tribe to greet her or at least see Oswald do the I’m your man shuffle. Everyone just stopped and looked at each other slightly nervously it seemed and after a few seconds Oswald and the rest of the tribe went on their way. I just felt sorry for Skunk at that moment. All the trauma, all that effort, and not even a hello from her tribe.

Finally the day came when Dandy felt fit enough to make the final leg of the journey home. I followed Dandy and Skunk across the sheep field to the garden shed that was Tribe 1’s home that evening. The rest of Tribe 1 had already settled on their perch for the night and I watched feeling very apprehensive as Dandy and Skunk went through the hatch beside the main door and into the shed. After a second or two I heard the familiar flapping of wings and the thump as Dandy reached the perch, a second later I heard Skunk do the same. When I opened the door Dandy and Skunk were side by side on the high perch opposite the rest of the tribe.

That evening looking at Dandy and Skunk on the high perch back with their tribe has so fa,r and probably always wil,l represent the best of my memories of my life at Can P.

Dandy settled back in to the tribe’s routine as if nothing had happened. She never laid another egg. Skunk developed the Maran black plumage with the gold edging on her collar feathers. Mini Minx’s (Skunks Grandmother) bantam genes meant Skunk didn’t grow to be as big as a pure Maran hen but the rest of the tribe accepted her without any problems. For a couple of months life seemed good again for both Skunk and Dandy and then one day Dandy disappeared. I saw the entire tribe come down the track from the sheep field and cross into the bamboo clump as I worked on some project in the car port.

I had sat down for a cigarette when Skunk rushed up to me chirping excitedly and jumped on to my lap. It wasn’t until a while later when I realized Dandy was missing that I understood Skunk had been trying to tell me Mum had been taken by a predator. I didn’t hear any alarm calls or find any signs of a struggle, or her body; she just vanished.

Skunk’s behavior changed from that day. Instead of following the Oswald and the rest of the hens I often found find her on her own, or with Major. In the evenings when the tribe retuned to the shed Skunk would loiter outside until everyone had taken up their positions on the perches then quietly slip in and perch next to Major if she could squeeze between the other hens.

A few weeks after Dandy’s disappearance Major became very ill, the most likely cause being a failing heart. In the last few days of Major’s life he had become so disorientated and so debilitated by the disease that he was unable to defend, or feed himself and unable to make the jump to the perch in Tribe 1’s home. For his last few nights Major slept in the hospital coop which then was situated next to the vegetable garden, over one hundred metres away from Tribe 1’s home.

On Major’s first night in the hospital coop I carried him to the coop, made him as comfortable as possible and shut the door and went up to the sheep field to close up Tribe 1 for the night. When I checked Tribe 1 to make sure everyone was in, Skunk was missing. I spent a few minutes searching for Skunk in the area around Tribe 1’s home, then given it was getting dark, I thought she may have gone to the triangle coop she grew up in.

When I got back to the vegetable garden I found Skunk standing outside the door of the hospital coop and realised that Skunk knew Major was in the Hospital coop and wanted to be in there with him. Considering it was almost dark now this was an incredible show of determination by Skunk; chickens do not like being on the ground in the dark and alone on the ground in the dark over 100 metres from home almost unthinkable.

With some misgivings I opened the top of the hospital coop, picked Skunk up and lowered her in next to Major. The hospital coop is small and Major was a large Maran male, there wasn’t a lot of room. Skunk wiggled underneath Major making quiet chirruping sounds and Major responded with nesting coo, coo sounds. I closed the coop and stood in the dark listening to the pair of them for a few minutes. After some rustling sounds the coop went quiet and I quietly lifted the top of the coop to see inside. Skunk was lying under Major’s neck with his head resting on her back. Major’s eyes didn’t open but Skunk looked straight at me, gave another quiet chirrup and I closed the lid.

For the last three nights of Major’s life Skunk would come to the hospital coop at dusk to spend the night with Major. Finally it was decided that it would be kinder to kill Major than keep him alive, virtually helpless, any longer.

Skunk didn’t come to the hospital coop that night

Skunk spent more and more time on her own during the day after Major’s death. I would often find her on top of the waste hay pile sheltering below a rosemary bush that grew out of the bank above. In the evenings when Tribe 1 went to their perches, Skunk would stay out until I arrived and ushered her in.

Not many weeks later I went up to the sheep field past the waste hay pile to close up for the night and found Skunk lying in a pile of feathers and blood at the base of the bank the waste hay pile sits on.

I buried Skunk alongside Major and with all the other dead from Tribe 1 in a patch of ground where the old garden shed that was Tribe 1’s home used to be