Thursday, May 13, 2010

Five more refugees


The owner of the nearby factory farm dropped off five more hens today. One had eluded capture and fled the warehouse, spending the last couple nights outside where it managed to not get eaten by predators.

The other four had been living beneath the floor slats in the warehouse where they long ago tried to escape their doomed existence as sex slaves - breeders for The Man. This allowed them to keep all their feathers but left them in a position to get shit on alot. To them, I guess it was the lesser of two evils.


Welcome home, sisters.







There are now seven chickens under the front porch and thirteen in the triage coop behind the house. That's twenty total living up at the house - more than are living in Frankencoop right now, which is currently housing fourteen adults and three baby chicks. Thirty seven chickens in all.

I now have a rooster on each side of the house - both under open windows. This is the most effective alarm clock I have ever owned. Sadly, you can't choose the time it goes off nor does it have a snooze button. There is no oversleeping when you sleep with the chickens.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Gross! Can't you give those poor things a bath?

Jackie said...

Not really. I can pick off the big chunks but that's about it. They are so afraid of me (and everything) that handling them would totally stress them out.

Over time they will get wet in the rain, learn to take dust baths, groom themselves and slowly become not so dirty. In the fall, they will molt. Their feathers will fall out and they will grow brand new clean feathers. But, until then, they will be nasty stinky birds.

Anonymous said...

I love the video of the chicks! They are so cute.