Rooster has been unusually friendly and eager for pets, but not batshit crazy.
Hen has been adorable as always, and responding nicely to irregular schedules due to weather.
The only minor occurrence has been with the volunteer hen.
And it is pretty minor. She’s a bit of a pisser. See, because we can’t keep her isolated or even in our yard since she’s got a band on and can escape the yard easily, we can’t let her stay in the chicken run.
You don’t introduce a strange bird to your flock without an isolation period, and with her not being ours, and having started as someone’s, we can’t just crate her on the porch or anything like that. So she’s free to go wherever she wants, which means she’s a constant exposure threat. Which is bad enough through the wire of the run, but we’re not risking more contact than that unless we can get her through a quarantine period where she doesn’t leave the yard.
Not a big deal. Except… when one of us is out there, giving treats, checking the water, that kind of thing, she gets super jealous of our hen. She sees the treats in the run and wants them too. She gets treats, none of us are going to be mean enough to run her off, so she gets some too.
But she wants allllllll the treats. Which means she’s fluffing up all tough and squawking through the mesh. Our hen is about twice the volunteer’s size since the volunteer is a bantam, so she’s nonplussed about it. Not that our hen is huge, she’s a marans, and they’re on the small side. So the marans is happily gobbling things up, trilling and purring and clucking while the rooster tuk-tuks around. The volunteer is stomping and acting badass while being essentially ignored.
It’s utterly hilarious to see a bird that could comfortably nestle into my hand (I have big hands, she isn’t tiny) with just fluff hanging off trying to act like a cartoon character doing the whole “put ‘em up, put em’ up” routine.
Strangely, very relaxed.
Rooster has been unusually friendly and eager for pets, but not batshit crazy.
Hen has been adorable as always, and responding nicely to irregular schedules due to weather.
The only minor occurrence has been with the volunteer hen.
And it is pretty minor. She’s a bit of a pisser. See, because we can’t keep her isolated or even in our yard since she’s got a band on and can escape the yard easily, we can’t let her stay in the chicken run.
You don’t introduce a strange bird to your flock without an isolation period, and with her not being ours, and having started as someone’s, we can’t just crate her on the porch or anything like that. So she’s free to go wherever she wants, which means she’s a constant exposure threat. Which is bad enough through the wire of the run, but we’re not risking more contact than that unless we can get her through a quarantine period where she doesn’t leave the yard.
Not a big deal. Except… when one of us is out there, giving treats, checking the water, that kind of thing, she gets super jealous of our hen. She sees the treats in the run and wants them too. She gets treats, none of us are going to be mean enough to run her off, so she gets some too.
But she wants allllllll the treats. Which means she’s fluffing up all tough and squawking through the mesh. Our hen is about twice the volunteer’s size since the volunteer is a bantam, so she’s nonplussed about it. Not that our hen is huge, she’s a marans, and they’re on the small side. So the marans is happily gobbling things up, trilling and purring and clucking while the rooster tuk-tuks around. The volunteer is stomping and acting badass while being essentially ignored.
It’s utterly hilarious to see a bird that could comfortably nestle into my hand (I have big hands, she isn’t tiny) with just fluff hanging off trying to act like a cartoon character doing the whole “put ‘em up, put em’ up” routine.