RG Meets the Chickens

Next, the Friendly Neighbors introduced Random Granddaughter to the chickens. Not that long ago, both the ducks and the chickens were babies, and now they are young adults.

Some of the chickens have just started laying eggs. One chicken was sitting under a bush, clucking disconsolately. The Friendly Neighbors explained she is probably “egg bound” (an egg is stuck inside her). Although I am a mere male—maybe because I am a mere male—I felt great sympathy for the poor chicken.The Friendly Neighbors had called the Chicken Lady, who had taught the class on raising chickens we all took. Chicken Lady told the Friendly Neighbors there is no quick fix and advised letting the hen try to work through the problem. (Perhaps I should state it as letting the problem work through the hen.) Although if the problem seems desperate, one can reach inside and try to pull the egg out, but one runs a considerable risk of breaking the egg inside the hen. This is generally not a good result. I can imagine.

 

The Friendly Neighbors have several breeds of chickens. My wife is particularly taken with the Dominiques, as they are one of the friendliest breeds of chickens. They like to be picked up and petted.

Mrs. Friendly Neighbor asked RG if she wanted to feed candy to the hens. Hen candy is brown rice. Brown rice is good for chickens. However, they love it and consider it to be chicken candy, so they get only a little bit at a time.

At that moment, a Dominique hen came down to the area where we were chatting, and Mrs. FN shook the can of brown rice to let the hen know she had some hen candy for it. Usually it rushes forward for a brown rice treat, but on that day the Dominique was just not in the mood and merely stayed in the bushes clucking in an indifferent manner. Even friendly hens have moody days.

Mrs. FN took RG over to feed some other hens. When they returned, Mrs. FN said they had good results with the other hens. In fact, a rather stand-offish hen who had never taken brown rice from Mrs. FN accepted some from Random Granddaughter.

Later the Friendly Neighbors commented on how well RG interacted with the ducks and chickens. She approached them in a quiet, confident, and respectful manner.

I take this as a combination of her introvert nature—after all, she like to be approached in a quiet, confident, and respectful manner—and her experience in growing up with a couple of cats. Cats for the most part are introverted animals. The late Sebastian had certainly been an introvert, and very slow to warm to RG.

On the other hand, Sylvie is the most extroverted cat I have ever met. She is clearly a cat (and not a dog in a cat’s body), but she clearly and instantly loves any human she meets. It is a sign of how perceptive my daughter is that she chose Sylvie from the shelter.

Nevertheless, it took RG a while to learn to approach Sylvie (clearly a pet with training wheels) in a sensible manner. By the time she visited the Friendly Neighbors’ flocks, RG demonstrated considerable poultry sensitivity, a sign of her growing maturity.