It was chicken visitation week here on the farm. It seemed as if every day a different hen flew into a random goat pen and couldn’t figure out how to get back out.
The first of the hens landed in Jordan’s pen in the morning. Unlike the milkers, Jordan was unfazed. Nothing was going to keep him from enjoying his morning oats and alfalfa.
When I finished feeding everyone, I tried to catch the hen, who was at this point running back and forth along the fence closest to her coop - looking distraught that she couldn’t get back home. I couldn’t catch her.
I went to the house and told Jan there was a chicken who’d gotten herself stuck in Jordan’s pen. She came out, and together we were able to shoo the chicken out (it took two of us because one person had to keep Jordan in the pen while the other got the chicken through the gate).
Later in the week, another chicken visited the milkers briefly, but was able to figure out how to leave their pen on her own.
The most dramatic chicken visitation came near the end of the week, when one of our Ameraucanas landed in the area between Jan’s house and my house. That area is guard dog territory - the place where our Great Pyrenees hang out.
She landed there in the afternoon. At 3:00 every afternoon I throw scratch to the chickens, and then clean their coops and gather their eggs. I had gotten their bucket of scratch all ready - we fill it with grain that we buy from the Tractor Supply, and our own cooking scraps, and then some goat milk cheese that Jan makes from our goats’ milk. I was heading to the chicken yard with their scratch bucket, when I realized that the dogs were barking.
James Carville said, not long ago, that the sound of rural America is the sound of barking dogs. That is so true. And, because it’s true, we often ignore their barking. But, at some point, it registered in my brain that this barking had been going on for a bit, and I needed to investigate.
Just as I thought to investigate, another sound arose: the sound of a chicken screaming at the top of her lungs. I followed the sound and saw that Vera had a chicken cornered in the place where my garage meets my house. I didn’t think I could pull Vera away from the chicken, so I ran into the house to get Jan.
We ran back outside, and Jan just called the dogs to come to her for peanuts. Vera left the chicken immediately, and we shut the dogs out into the outer yard. Who knew it was that simple? I just don't know dogs very well, I guess. Or, Vera is a particularly good dog. We went to see if the chicken had been injured. Luckily, that chicken had been resourceful. She had scrambled behind a bunch of tools that were leaning up against the wall of the house. There was a ladder, an old drain pipe, some two-by-fours. She had scrambled behind them and they had protected her from Vera’s jaws. She had a little bit of dog drool on her tail feathers, and she was certainly petrified, but otherwise had not a scratch on her. She made no resistance to being picked up, and she seemed to understand that she was being rescued. We released her in the chicken yard, where I threw the scratch, but she ignored the food and ran into her coop, where she got up on the highest perch, as far back as possible, and refused to budge for the rest of that day.
I thought that episode ended nicely - and forgot about it completely - until the next morning. In the mornings, we liberate the chickens from their coops right at sunrise. Then we move on to milking.
On a normal morning, the milkers all follow me from their pen to the milking parlor. They're like over-sized puppies, trying to push their noses into my pockets, or underneath my hands as I walk. But, on this particular morning, not even greedy Mothra followed me willingly. Usually Mothra runs ahead of me. She is that eager to get onto the milking stand where I’ve already filled her bucket with delicious grain.
But, when Mothra hung back, I worried she was sick. When she finally got into the milking parlor (and I had to push her through the door) I told my cousin something was wrong with our goats. Jan looked up and saw that none of the goats had come to the area outside the milking parlor. Normally the goats crowd into that area, sometimes standing up with their hooves on the wall so that they can look in the windows. It's the same area - the space in between our two houses - where Vera had cornered the chicken. Suddenly Jan laughed. “They think a chicken was murdered here yesterday. They’re afraid to come in.”
So, while I milked Mothra, Jan lured the goats back into that tainted land with the universal enticement: peanuts. Whew! Normal life was restored.
In other news: we gave the hens a “Flock Block”:
That cube near the bottom is the flock block - grain all stuck together with molasses. Look how much they have enjoyed it already:
Sam, Wendell, and Leroy, who share a pen have come into some hard times recently. They were all living together harmoniously until a few days ago, when suddenly Leroy went into rut, and now they’re all head-butting each other all of the time. It seems to me as if it’s always two against one in that pen, but the alliances are constantly shifting so that sometimes Leroy and Wendell gang up against Sam, sometimes Wendell is getting butted by the other two, and sometimes it’s Leroy who’s on the outs. If they don’t settle down soon, we’ll put Wendell in the back pen, where he’s lived happily before. He’s a wether, so he can go in there.
There are a group of cranes who have chosen our neighbor’s field as their feeding ground this year. That means that they fly low over our farm many times a day. To me, the sound of New Mexico in winter is the sound of the sand hill cranes whirring in the skies. It’s really wonderful.
My last bit of animal news is a gratuitous photo of Coco, looking alluring after recovering from her spaying.
And, of course, I’ve got to end by shamelessly promoting my soap website: https://www.serenasoaps.com/. We are now one week away from selling shampoo bars!
