Days of Our Buckeyes... part four

Thirteen days. Thirteen -not so bad -but not what he had planned for -days.

Bucky didn't want to be ungrateful toward his new friends in the big fancy pen with the barn and the loft and the roosting poles and heavy wooden nest boxes with the older hens who somehow seemed to tolerate him as the newcomer.  They were all pretty nice, really, though the hens were pretty set in their ways.

There was Poofy, the Cochin in the big nesting box who only shared with Buffy and Delia.  And then there was Lady Liberty who seemed bent on stealing their favorite spot when they got up to eat.  But even that wasn't much drama. And the worst he got from Austra and her sister was being outright ignored.

Bucky thought about going to meet the Phoenix hen up in the loft. The others called her Sneaky, but that didn't sound much like a name to Bucky.  She'd been up in the loft above the barn since the boy caretaker had been away. And even then, the mama lady from the house had looked after and talked to them all, but the hens got more pats and encouragement than the boys. Not that it helped that she didn't seem to appreciate their crowing contests...

Anyhow, the feisty, stubborn Sneaky had been up sitting on eggs when the caretaker boy returned from somewhere he called "camp". She couldn't be all there upstairs, because she kept dropping them over the side of the loft. A few times, the mama lady gave them back to her, asking if she had heard of  shaken baby something. Whatever it was, it didn't sounds good!  Just when Bucky was looking up there, thinking of going up to keep her company, Delia told me she was unfriendly and that when she sits up there like that, going up to visit is a death wish akin to cuddling with the owl that tries to get in at night.

Bucky knew he shouldn't complain, even the big, dominant Brahma roosters were tolerating him and not fussing at him much, as long as he was nice to the hens.  And they get plenty of treats- melons, squash, sprouts, and apples.  But really, from this vantage point of half an acre away from Mahogany at the closest, there was little chance of Bucky seeing his true love.  Even less chance of winning her back, not to even remotely consider getting her to run away with him.  

For all Bucky knew, she had forgotten him by now. 

Yet every evening at sunset, settling in with his fellow friends in the big pen barn and all of their quirks, he gazed at the beautiful sunset and thought that Mahogany was gazing at the same beautiful sunset, and he hoped he would see her again soon...

Days of our Buckeyes...part two

As the rain subsided and the evening began to fall, Bucky chased the birchen hen around right in front of the current inhabitants of the Buckeye pen.  He noticed Mahogany watching, just in time for that obnoxious rooster, TallBoy, to peck and chase her away from the feed she was standing by, and Bucky broke his attention just enough that Junior, the Phoenix rooster, chased him off his intended target.  Bucky hoped Mahogany hadn't noticed that part.  This whole making her jealous thing would work far better if Junior could just let Birchen go along with it.

Bucky settled in across the Buck pen from the Buckeye pen, roosting on an old nesting box the mama lady didn't like, but the man that came around sometimes had put off getting rid of.  For now, it gave Bucky a spot to watch the Buckeye pen without ticking off Junior in the tree up above.  TallBoy was still not letting Mahogany eat the fresh food that the mama had put in.  Bucky let his temper simmer.  If Mahogany was his hen, he would treat her so much better.  She should have snuck out of the pen again, stood up to TallBoy. Something.

Now Bucky felt himself clinging to hope, remembering his young caretaker talking with the mama and the girl who cared for the goats, about how Bucky might be shorter but was a beautifully shaped roo.  The caretaker boy even suggested hatching some more hens to raise to balance things out, and give them a chance to learn to live together when the pens moved again soon.

Until then, Bucky wanted to make sure Mahogany would keep looking at him, and consider him a better rooster for her...

"the holdouts"

Days of Our Buckeyes... part one

At the risk of being cliche with the soap opera, there has been a good bit made lately about chickens being gateway livestock, where you talk silly with them, spoil them, and amass more and more birds, followed by new species.  Sometimes for folks like us, as we do the daily walk around, we get a good laugh at the dramas unfolding around us:  the hens in the big pen that didn't like their roo, and would try to dig under to get to the buff Brahma in the Brahma pen, the hen dead set against living in a pen, who when placed on a roost next to the big roo in the A pen late one night, became his inseparable best gal, and more.

As Wyatt Clay has been working on the heritage project, we chose to bring in 5 Buckeyes- all supposed to be pullets- as an experiment, to track the weights and see how they grew alongside the Brahmas he favored. In the end, we knew bringing in good birds meant that we were likely to have some pullet impostors- that is, young cockerels masquerading as pullets.  And we did!  As it would turn out, there were three pullets and two cockerels, and one of the pullets suddenly passed away right around the age of maturity.

As the birds would grow, and the dominance of one cockerel emerged, the other cockerel wanted to be in the pen, but was consistently run out by the dominant one.  I don't even know how he was getting out of the pen, but initially we would find him hanging out nearby, then he soon started hanging out with the geese or the phoenix holdouts, the ones who keep sneaking out of the pens to live in the tree, and I am building a new double gated pen for.

Clearly, I have spent WAY TOO MUCH time teaching fitness in HOT aerobics rooms, and coming home to home school and clean and manage the plants and animals!  But this came to mind, and here it goes...

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Young Bucky was trying hard to forget Mahogany, but try as he might, she was right there, standing beside TallBoy and Roja every time he rounded the buck pen or wandered into the goose pen to sneak black oil sunflower seeds. And even when Mahogany clucked or chortled at him, she was quickly gathered back by TallBoy, and she never stood up to TallBoy, never seemed to protest for long being just another of his "girls". Oh, but if Mahogany has been Bucky's girl, it would have been different...

No, Bucky couldn't think about that now.  He heard the boy caretaker who brought the food and cleaned the water and housing talk about hatching some more hens, and trying to put them all in a different pen where they could learn to get along,  but Bucky couldn't think about that either.

Then the cute little birchen hen ran past.  Bucky couldn't help himself, he chased after her, round and round the Silkie area, past the crazy d'Uccles and overly laid back bantam Cochins, until he caught up to her.  Almost as soon as he had, she was off again, rushing back to that goofy Phoenix boy, Junior.  But Mahogany didn't have to know that part.

When Bucky swaggered back, trying to look proud of himself, and as though he didn't need anything as a big boy of the farm, he tried to decide whether Mahogany was actually jealous, or whether she seemed to realize that Bucky was putting on airs.  Bucky put his beak in the air, and strutted off, noticing Mahogany doing much the same.  "Maybe she really does care," Bucky thought to himself, maybe if he just held out a little longer...