We have one Araucana (or possibly Ameraucana, not sure) hen that came as an oddball with the dozen Leghorns Neighbor S bought two years ago. I call her Oddball Girl because she’s definitely the odd chicken out and spends a lot of time engaged in righteous self-imposed social distancing. And I forgot to take a picture of her for this post but what brought her to mind was this…
In her first year I was in favor of culling her, because she was always the one spazzing out and getting picked on by all the other hens. Generally those are more trouble than they’re worth. But in their second year all the Leghorns have been really stingy with their eggs for some reason neither S nor I can figure out – but Oddball Girl drops one per day, almost every day, always in the same spot.
Who knew chickens could be so complex?
Chickens are funny creatures. I started over this year with 6 Ameracaunas, 2 RI reds, 2 black sex links and 2 barred rocks, all supposedly pullets. 2 of the Ameracaunas turned out to be cockerels. After they turned 12 weeks old, I started letting them out in the yard to scratch. No problems with predators so far, but a month later, I lost 4 pullets, 1 each RI red, barred rock, Ameracauna and sex link. I saw a fox run across the yard with one in its mouth. 2 weeks later the surviving Barred rock started laying butt nuggets and she got nabbed the day she started. I then only let them out of the run when I was there to watch. Two weeks later the 5 surviving pullets started laying, then at the start of September the two roosters started a godawful squawking and I ran out with the pistol to see one fly up and come down with spurs out attacking what I assume is the fox, but the foxes won and ran off before I could get through the woods to the fight.
The surviving Ameracaunas are better layers than the RI red and black sex link, I usually get 5 to 6 a week from each one. two of them lay medium blue eggs and the other a large green-blue egg. All 5 girls get along well with the Sex link being the boss.
Yeah , darn chickens can be about as discriminatry as Trump at a rally.
Just drop an oddball in with the lot , and watch the pecking begin.
Wow. Dude. You just managed to find a political message in a post about a chicken. None of my business, but you really ought to consider unplugging for a while, maybe find some perspective. Despite what they’d have us believe, we’re not trapped in an episode of Donald Trump and the Riotous Commies.
These days, it’s difficult to not find parallels . Tho you are certainly correct about just unplugging to refresh and forget .
Chickens are very good reminders of human society and the constant need to grab what the other guy has.