Chickens are Funny :)

  

My daughter with chicks from years ago when we raised several batches of chicks.

   Once upon a time, long ago, I had chickens...then a raccoon killed them all! This was at Merrie Mill. No kidding...it took forever to find and fix the problem, but by then, they were all dead :(  Well, all but one, which I took to the bf's farm, but wouldn't you know it that that house had a weakness that the raccoon there found and also killed that last chicken...and the remaining peacocks and turkey hens that were there. So frustrating...I have stopped naming chickens for the most part. They are just too darned easily killed by marauding wild critters... so as sad as that all was, new chickens aren't hard to come by and in spring of '14, I bought 6 new chickens. They weren't chicks, but a few months old. I had gone through the babysitting of little chicks more than once, and, while fun, I just didn't want the responsibility again, so...I bought older ones.

   This is the newest batch of chickies(when they were still smaller) that I got. 6 in total.

                      Unfortunately two of them got killed by another raccoon who was getting into the chicken house. Luckily we found the hole and sealed it, but we are down to 4 now.

  This is Sid, he was the lone bird after the raccoon killing spree, I guess he was just too big to deal with. Now he has a Mrs. Turkey...needless to say, he is much happier now!

 
         So, why are they funny? Well, since they have been able to be free range(the last dog, who would have killed them, died), they have slowly gone further and further from the safety of their house. I looked out the window and saw them on the house side of the boxwood hedge. I slid open the sliding patio doors, which they heard and promptly lifted their skirts and ran off(see above). That made me laugh!!
Seems any noise gets them nervous. They don't usually go far, then turn and look back.



  Here, they are on the other side of the box hedge, closer to their house, so they feel safer.


      This is the only red hen I have. She is a sex-link. The best layer!! I hate to say I have any favorite, but I do...and it's her! She's easily the friendliest and most inquisitive of the four.


                    
    Most of the time when they see me, they run over, sure that I have bread to give them. They LOVE bread...I can throw out fruit, which they will eat, but if I put it out first, they look at it and look at me with the look of "is that it?", which I find hilarious!! Then they get their bread, which they always fight over. If there is a particularly large piece that one gets, they grab and run as far away from the others as they can. They DO NOT like to share!

    Anyone who has chickens, knows how amusing they can be. I hope to get a couple more, maybe this spring :)