Casual Conversation

Well, all three are doing well. Fat and sassy as they say. None of them are actually overweight, but they are all sassy, and they look like butterballs.

Anyway, it's been a slowish week. No big events, just a lot of shoe humping by the rooster, the usual silliness he does at bedtime, and the hens being adorable.

The marans hen has a long standing habit I've never mentioned before. She likes ice.

Not too unusual, as many animals do. She, however, turns it into entertainment for us.

Chickens being chickens, they can't exactly chew on ice the way some dogs love to. No, they have to have it broken up for them, or wait until it melts enough they can handle it, size wise.

Her ice habit started over a year ago. When she's in the house, she tends to follow one of us everywhere. It's usually me, but sometimes my wife. One day, I was filling up my water tumbler, and cracked a fresh tray of ice. It was a little over full, and some small chips rained down as they broke off.

Little Cricket starts happily pecking at them, and when those were gone, looked up at me and did her "please sir, can I have some more" buk at me. So I got some of the loose pieces and dropped them for her.

After that, even if she isn't with me, if she hears the freezer door open, you can hear the flapping of wings and the thunk of a chicken hitting the ground running. She comes around the corner at speed, sometimes sliding a little on the linoleum. And, she is at it, pecking and burbling to herself.

Until it's either gone or melted, when the brrrrrrrrk comes out. Now, that translates to "look, monkey, I know you have some more, and I'm going to be as patient as a chicken can be, but I'm just warning you that I have a pecker and I'm not afraid to use it"

And she isn't, really. She won't peck me because she knows that I'll pick her up and tickle her wing pits. But she will indeed peck the ever loving hell out of anyone else. What she will do is peck right next to my toes until I give her more.

So, what started as an unexpected thing has turned into another ritual.

Small chips of ice melt fast. Faster than she can get them down. So I drop a few, she gets them, then I drop a few more, and this process repeats until I'm either out of chips small enough for her, or they've melted in the tray. At which point, I'll put the tray back in the freezer while she dances around trying to see what's in there, and scolding me for not cracking another tray.

And there are more. I started over filling all of them a little bit so that there's almost always going to be at least a few chips for her.

As a side note, the flock is a weird one. Yesterday, the male cardinal of the pair that have been adopted by the chickens hopped his little ass across the ground and pecked my shoe. Why? Because biscuits.

Yup. Not only has the squirrel figured out that the monkeys are the biscuit gods, the cardinals have too. Since we never bother them, they have decided that we are not a threat, and that they deserve their own treats instead of sharing with the chickens. Unlike the squirrel that usually just sits on either the coop or the grill and chatters at us, the cardinal demands his share directly. That's how the rooster rolls when treats are slow in coming, so I assume it's a learned behavior.

Thus far, I have chosen to ignore those demands. I don't want a wild bird getting too trusting of people. It rarely ends well for the wild critters. But I also don't have it in me to run them off when they're very sweetly chirping at me. I come out the door, and within seconds, the two cardinals are flitting around the shrubbery and trees, chirping and singing. The squirrel is only a little slower, and his song is not as sweet. But I think there's a wren that is trying to get in on the action. I'm not certain it's the same bird every time, but there's been one lurking just outside the fence lately.

Wait. Am I fairy tale princess now?