I’ve got three vicious would-be murderers on my hands…
Beautiful, aren’t they? They’re the sisters of Smithers, who went to meet Colonel Sanders a few weeks ago, and looking at them I’m glad I culled him when I did. Mature, he might have been a handful.
They never completely fit in with the Brahma flock, but only just recently turned mean. The Brahma hens are dual-use lumps of meat and don’t seem to deal with real violence very competently. Two or three days ago – I told this story to Landlady when she was here – I saw the Auracanas chasing Brahma hens and you’ll never guess who ran to their rescue.
Yup, that’s Agnes the Little Red Hen, exiled here among hens half again her size when she damn near killed her little sister Selma. For a microsecond she tried throwing her weight around amid the Brahmas, only to be swamped and tag-teamed into utter submission.
That’s about the only policy decision I’ve made concerning the hens that worked out completely well. She was isolated on the nest shelves for several days before they’d even let her down on the floor, but once they did she gradually became part of the flock and as far as I’ve ever been able to see her picking-on-other-hen days were done. But now, when one of the Auracanas would pick on one of the Brahmas, nobody less than Agnes would throw herself between them.
Sometime between yesterday and the day before, that stopped working. I found all the…well, I already told you what I found. I’ve got an injured hen in my powershed with a big deep chunk eaten out of her, and I don’t know if she’s going to live or not. The Auracanas are isolated for the moment but that’s too clunky a solution to last.
But it occurred to me this morning that we could combine the debris of three failed experiments and maybe pull all this together. I’ve got the fenced garden area with all that bare dirt. Ian’s got that very nice coop he built when he delivered those 12 baby pullets for Ghost to slaughter. And Landlady’s got three…velociraptors that don’t play well with others. Put them all together, they spell new chicken yard. The Auracanas are very (very very) athletic compared to the other chickens we’ve had and absolutely can jump/fly over the fence but that’s fine: Confine them to the coop for a couple of days to give them the idea that’s their new home base, then let them. It’ll keep daylight predators out, should any be foolish enough to approach during the day and if the chickens have sense enough (ha!) to retreat to it at need. Given that, learning whether chickens can successfully pasture here is one of the things Ian was trying to do this spring.
Of course there’s still the matter of Ghost, but he has never bothered a chicken that’s behind wire. He acts like they don’t exist. And I’d be there at first to discourage him from chasing them if they’re outside the wire. And these are much faster than the babies he slaughtered.
It’s a better plan than just eating them. Landlady has sunk a lot of feed into these things in hope of eggs. All parties agreeing, we’re going to give it a try.
