Chickens Are Cray (Crazy)

I’ve been incommunicado so you don’t know that the pecking order in the coop changed. Amelia the Leghorn lost her status as boss chicken while she was molting. She was embarrassed of how nasty she looked with half of her feathers and Peacock, my noisy but timid black Australorp, swooped in and stole the throne. The top of the pecking order entails supreme chicken authority and an actual roost throne. The throne is a small roost close to the ceiling which overlooks the bigger roost used by the commoners. Peacock now sleeps alone.

Amelia: The Former Boss

The new queen has taken her vocalizations to a new level now that she’s the boss.

“Baaaaallllkkkkkk, ballllllllk, bk, bk” she screams as I approach the coop.

“BBBBBAAAAALLKLLLKKKK!!!” 

That's the new boss on the left

She’s not actually aggressive, she’s just loud, and hilarious. She’s always been the chicken who squawks for dear life when I pick her up. Being noisy is just her thing. Now that she’s the boss she’s letting her freak flag fly.

I was shocked that Amelia let someone else take over because she is so pushy. But Pea’s been in power for a good two months now. Until today. I brought some treats out to the girls and was changing their water when I noticed that Pea was bald headed. The baldness was super noticeable because her feathers are black and because she was missing a huge chunk of feathers on her head. The good news was that she didn’t appear malled and her skin was intact. I knew immediately what had gone down. Amelia had taken back the throne. Fine, no big deal, but now I needed to put some pine tar on Pea’s head to discourage future pecking. Fun Fact: Pine tar also has antibacterial properties. And since these chicks were getting crazy with hair pulling it seemed an apt time to do some beak sanding. It’s much harder to grab and injure other chicken with a dull beak.

Mike and I made an appointment to sand the beaks after dark when the girls retired to the coop. They’re impossible to catch during the day. At night I steal in, pull them from their peaceful slumber, sand down the beak (just a tiny bit so that’s rounded as opposed to dagger shaped) and put them back to bed.

We grabbed our first victim, one of the Rhode Island Reds. Mike’s role is to hold the chicken while I shave the beak. The whole process takes about 25 seconds. When he released the RIR she just fell over. Her eyes were closed. I batted her. Dead weight. I started flipping out. Mike started in with a sternal rub. Thankfully his life saving techniques were in tact while this nurse was more or less paralyzed. Suddenly she started twitching and I started smacking her face and yelling my chicken call. “Chiiiickkkkhan,  Chiiickkkkaan!” I screeched as I shone my flashlight into her eyes. Mike and I had decided that she had passed out and was trying to get her to come to. Mike was still doing pseudo chicken CPR. Eventually she recovered, a bit drunk but intact.

She stumbled around the pen as we shaved the other seven’s beaks. As we finished up she went back into the house to go to bed.

The next day was fine. And that's how chickens keep you on your toes.