Granny Chicken
6 January 2008
If you've been visiting our website for awhile now then you've probably
already heard plenty about our chickens. It started with a flock of
egg laying hens we saved from the stew pot.
They're still laying eggs, just not as many
as they used to. Next came a flock of
hens and roosters from the local Humane
Society. Shortly after that we received a batch of
colored Easter chicks that turned out to be
all roosters.
Most of our roosters have been dispatched. There is still a small flock
of roosters and hens that we call our "wild chickens" because they hang out in
the coffee fields and macadamia nut orchard rather than near the house. We
can thank our dog Kia for that.
Kia is amazingly well behaved when it comes to the chickens. Most dogs
love to chase chickens. It's not at all uncommon for a pet dog to
happily wipe out an entire flock of chickens just for sport. To a dog,
killing chickens is just a game. Training a dog to not chase chickens
is like training a child to not like candy, it can be done but it
certainly isn't easy or natural.
We're lucky because neither of our dogs has ever killed any of our
chickens. Kia loves to chase the wild roosters away but somehow she
has learned to ignore our white egg laying chickens. Unless they're on
the porch, then she'll chase them back into the yard. That's good
because chicken poop on the porch is not fun.
There is one chicken Kia will let on the porch: Granny. Granny
chicken is blind. I won't go into details other than to say that
roosters aren't gentle. Granny was popular with the roosters and ended
up loosing her eyes. She still stumbles around the farm scratching for
bugs but we have to lead her to water and feed her by hand or she'd
starve.
Pecking order is very important to chickens and the other hens quickly
shunned Granny from the flock. When we feed Granny we have to keep the
other chickens away or they'll chase Granny off and eat all the food.
That's just the way chickens are, weak individuals go to the bottom of
the pecking order so the flock stays strong.
Granny wanders around the farm on her own. Not being able to see means
she gets into some odd places. I've found her inside the barn happily
scratching for bugs on the concrete floor. We've seen her fall off the
rock walls several times. Whenever it rains we have to go find her and
carry her back to some place dry. She has learned that the sound of
footsteps usually means food so if she hears you she'll come running.
Hold still and she'll run right into your legs.
Even though she can't see, Granny still seems happy to be a chicken.
Most chickens don't like to let people get too close. Granny is
perfectly happy to be picked up and carried around. Somehow the dog
has sensed this and decided that Granny deserves a little more leeway
than the other chickens. Good dog.
|
