Last night the door on the right side of the coop blew shut, and by the time I got up to the coop to close everything up, the “right side” chicks (they are barely older than babies) gave up on getting into their side and went over to the left side, where Han Solo is chief chefe.
And what a sad sight I beheld! There was Snowman, huddled at the top of the ladder, too shy about trying to find a spot on the roost once the four roos and excess hens had staked their claim. Even more pathetically, Fuzzy Zoeller and Delta Dawn were crouched against the back wall, under the roost bar and a little to the right to avoid getting pooped on. They looked positively Dickensian in the light from my headlamp. The two of them have “frizzled” feathers, a genetic thing that makes their feathers look and feel like hair, or fur. They look like they are wearing fall sweaters all the time, sweaters that are warm but not at all fashionable, the kind of thing that makes you look cozy when you wear it at home but makes you look homeless if you wear it outside in public.
Fuzzy is normally quite sassy, but offered only feeble resistance as I scooped him up under one arm and Delta Dawn under the other, taking them over the right side of the coop and climbing the ladder to deposit them on the roost. They kept their head still and didn’t struggle, seeming to like the feeling of being dramatically rescued and returned to their rightful home where they got to be on the roost like the big kids. They quickly settled in for the night, readjusting themselves.
Then I went back for Snowman who was a little resistant but I held him firmly and he settled down in my arms. I re-climbed the ladder on the right side of the coop, and placed him on the highest spot on the roost bar as befitting his status and to my surprise he allowed me to pet him a bit and did not peck at the flower tattoos on my arms. It’s good to be friends again. Snowman had gotten a bit standoffish when he was falling in with those Haskell boys, joining in gangs harassing the hens and I knocked him away from a fleeing hen more than a few times and he pouted at me. Now that the problematic Haskells are “relocated”1 Snowman is back to being a tad reserved but an overall sweet roo, and identical to Falcon except he wears long white kneesocks while Falcon’s are yellow.
With four bad roos gone we are now at fifteen domesticated roos (seven) and galinhas (eight)…none of this counting birds from the Secret Garden flock or the Container Flats flock. All three frizzle frangos are from I Dream of Jeannie’s peep of eight. I wonder who the daddy is with that frizzle gene. It’s very rock and roll, these frizzles, in their mohair suits like Benny and the Jets.
I haven’t seen Tiny Little Tina in a couple of days. I hope she is sitting on an egg somewhere…she has been disappearing then showing up for a meal after 2-3 days for over a week now. I’ve searched and searched for where she has tucked herself. I have seen a cat lurking about, late. Surely a cat wouldn’t mess with a hen but Tiny Little Tina, as her name suggests, is a particularly small hen, the littlest chick of our littlest hen. She is a frizzle and wears an adorable rosy colored mohair vest that makes her look like she’s vaguely alarmed or drawn by Ralph Steadman. I hope she’s okay. We’ve never seen another fox since last August 2024, but the wild and sprawling Queen’s lands are less than a half mile as the crow flies east, a good piece of land for foxes to roam, and, obviously, close to a good supply of chicken not to mention oft-overflowing public trash/recycle bins.
I started Chicken Feed because a couple of people wrote to me to say, in effect, hey I really like your chicken news, keeping up with their goings on helped me through a hard time in my life. I guess I’ve gotten ten notes like that. On reflection I guess it is not surprising that something I write about to soothe myself during a difficult time in my life would attract people similarly going through difficult times.
So let us harness the magic of chickens, their relationships and power struggles and expectations! Their bonded pairing, the fierceness of hens raising their young against steep odds, the unexpected sweetness of mellow roosters! Their curiosity, their contentment, their bravery, their nitpickyness about seniority, their cliques and the never-ending drama of strutting roos. When I see them standing in big groups it’s like there was a casting call for Michael Cain lookalikes. They are adorably pompous.
My favorites are the old guys, who seem to be standing off on their own grumbling about whippersnappers who don’t know how hard it was back in the day before the purple headed little one (me) came. The old roos know that the good times don’t always last, and that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. That people come and people go.
Still even the oldest roos know that for awhile now it’s been safe here, on this five acre plot of ground. Things are better now than they have ever been for the once-feral flock, with regular feeding times and water everywhere, the trees and brush all trimmed and the old limbs turned to woodchips that luxuriously carpet the Secret Garden. But even if these new people bringing the quinta and its grounds back to life somehow disappear again, the old roos will just lead the flock to the fruit trees and the gone-to-seed flowerbeds and the fallow horta. They will go back to patrolling the wall and the gate of the property that border the Avenida, where in the time before our arrival neighbors and friendly passers-by tossed bread and lettuce over the wall and put bowls of water on top of the wall.
I was feeling a bit low today so decided I’ll go see Falcon. I walked up to the coop and everyone gathered around, momentarily interested to see if I had food though I was off schedule. I sat down in the old lawn chair that sits outside the right side of the coop, heavily shaded by the fig tree, the seat is often sticky with the residue of fallen figs. I cleaned the chair off and sat down and within ten seconds Falcon came strutting down the wall and hopped right onto my lap. I gave him a hug and he clicked his beak together, the sound loud near my ear - it sounds a bit like teeth chattering and seems to express contentment.
Then Cake wanted to jump up - she and Pie have the silkiest feathers you’ve ever felt, and I always rub them under my chin while I hug them (keeping my eyes prudently closed. - I’ve been pecked in the eyeball a couple of times by a chicken who wanted to drink from my teary eyes. That sounds like a pretty good horror story come to think of it. If you haven’t already (and if you like horror content), check out my blog Horror Boulevard where I publish horror shorts.)
Later I went to see what the flock was up to and they were all under the fig tree, migrating from the coop courtyard down to poolside. They were all there just hanging out, happily pecking among the fallen figs.
Love and tchau for now!
Sandra
p.s. if you’d like to contribute some chicken feed to the Chicken Feed, click below and you’ll be charged one time for the cost of one bag of chicken feed (~10 euro), muita obrigada!
one of the Haskells really does live on a farm along with one of our galinhas, both of Sierra Nevada’s lineage; another died poolside in circumstances of almost horror movie savagery and two more were stewed and eaten by the h and a very grateful Jake, who delighted in many meals of roast chicken and potatoes and carrots, a meal provided from top to bottom by the quinta)
Oh I do hope Tiny little Tina is sitting on an egg. My friend’s house hen is called Tina too.
Yes your chicken’s give me life, I swear it’s the thing keeping me going as my body falls apart. It’s the way you write them, although Falcon does have the most dashing yellow socks.
I agree being slowly dehydrated by a chicken pecking the tears from your eyes is a very bad way to die, but chicken hugs sound amazing. I love all the stories from your Quinta but In think the chicken stories are my favourite.