“You Know Those Aren’t Our Chickens, Right?” and “This Ain’t No Poop Deck: Be Gone!”

         I don’t know how many posts I’ve created about the fowl creatures that come into our yard.  The turkeys were still around after Thanksgiving but seemed to disappear before Christmas.  The hens have seemed to multiply though their eggs have not.  I haven’t seen any roosters except for Mitch who seems to be the source of the “pighen demon” call.  Trying to sound like Bruce whom I thought had vanished but did see him the other day.  He’s not as annoying as Mitch.

        Jenna was told by the owner’s son that the black rooster was named Bruce.  I don’t know if he personally gives the animal names or if they really do have names.  They are not pets after all – except for maybe Miss Piggy who looks like she could win tons of blue ribbons for the tons of weight she must have put on.  Roland’s special name for the pig is “Chris P. Bacon” though not an original joke as I have heard it before.

        For the most part Jenna is the one who comes up with names for all the fowl who have wandered into our yard.  She says “Mitch” looks like the kind of rooster that are popular with oven mitts and other kitchen décor – but “Kitch” didn’t seem to fit and so she picked a rhyme that worked. 

        She calls the feather-duster looking one Cheryl – I don’t know why.  I’m guessing Cheryl and Mitch are roughly the same age as they had entered our yard as babies – well, not fluffy chick type babies.  They were obviously rooster and hen but very small in size.  I figure they are teenagers right now and Mitch is a cocky teenager at that.  He has not perfected his crow but I think he thinks he’s hot stuff.

This photo does not begin to capture how many chickens come into our yard

        Jenna has named the smaller orange hens Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy.  She calls the large orange hen Merida as she seemed to be the most brave about climbing up our deck and not bothering to run when the door was opened.  She just stays as though it’s her domain.  I don’t mind the creatures coming into our yard and even on our deck until they have decided that it is their personal toilet. That does not set well with me.

        Roland just cleaned all the poo off the deck with the garden hose and it reappeared the very next morning (less than 12 hours) and so I took the meshing net that had snared one of the chickens and laid it across the stairs.  They dared not cross it until they spotted Bonnie’s bowl with the chicken livers inside.  Jenna reported that they had crossed over to delect on Bonnie’s food.  Cannibles!!!

        Roland went to the feed store to purchase chicken food and a coop for them to lay their eggs in instead of under the porch – which they haven’t been doing but I doubt that Mitch has gotten around to impregnate the females who used to lay roughly three eggs each day (that is one for each of us if we don’t count Bonnie).  Our neighbors said we could keep the eggs if they laid them in our yard.  Okay, having them invade our yard as though it is a free-for-all territory is one thing – but enticing them to stay?  What is Roland thinking?

        We have purchase a lot of eggs over the years.  A LOT!!!  Even with only the three of us their small eggs are not enough.  So we still buy them.  Theirs are brown.  Ours our white.  

The darker yolk is from one of the brown eggs laid by the chickens
The lighter yolk comes from the white eggs we buy at the store

And we have been purchasing chicken parts in another county.  We feed those to Bonnie.  I don’t think Bonnie knows she’s eating organs that resemble those running around our yard.  The chickens don’t know we have a freezer full of chicken livers, hearts and gizzards.  If they did I’m sure they wouldn’t come around anymore. 

 Begging to Be Fed.

As though feeding them has ever been our job

Somehow they believe that it is.

 If they only knew.