There was a terrible calamity! When somebody knocked the feeder down with a great tin clatter, all the adult hens scurried their molting asses into the coop…
…leaving the pullets (and Seymour the baby cock) alone for the moment in the yard. Things immediately calmed down outside, inside the ladies were crying about death and blood and horror. When I was a little boy I heard a story about Chicken Little, which I did not understand. How stupid can you get? Now approaching old age, I finally do. Chickens is stupid, there’s just no other way they can be.
Which is why I’m getting such a kick out of my four newcomers, who are behaving in a way no chicken has yet behaved…
They’re not particularly afraid of me! In fact they represent a constant underfoot hazard when I’m working in the Fortress.
How ironic that the older birds, so irrationally frightened in the absence of any evidence, will ultimately prove to have been right all along.
Well – they had either you or the light bulb to imprint on.