Yesterday was a big day at the chicken commune. A hint: Glen and I had quite a workout chasing baby chicks. But before we get to our action packed chicken drama, there have been some questions about the chicks on the barbeque in the last post. No, we are not planning to eat the chicks! This picture was in response to Garth's comment (see May 12) about the barbeque. Perhaps Garth is fantasizing about barbequed chicken because of the limited supply of chicken in Korea as a result of Avian influenza. Second, for those representing the chick unions, please be assured that no chicks were used in the production of this picture but rather it was a product of Glen's amazing Photoshop skills.
Back to the chick chasing. It all started when we were doing our morning chicken feeding: we went to the usual spot under the camellia bush and no one was there. After some searching, Mother Hen and the little ones were located on the side of the house moving toward the left-hand neighbours' property. While most of the people in our neighbourhood are reasonably okay with the roaming chickens, some neighbours aren't wild about them, because the chickens mess up their landscaping. This, and the fact that the attrition rate for little chicks roaming around a suburban neighborhood would probably be pretty high, we decided it was time to round up the chicks.
Our first move was to encourage the chickens to move back to home base. Once they were in place, Glen donned his welding gloves while I gently moved the mother chicken with a broom. We had no idea the reaction that we would get: Mother Hen started lunging at Glen and squawking loudly. Wow! With this, the chick started to scatter. We learned something about chicks during this process; these two inch creatures can run like demons, can fit under almost anything and yet are so delicate that one needs to be very gentle when catching them. During all of this chaos, 4 went into a box, most returned to their mother at home base, and a few went elsewhere. After another repetition of this - with Mother Hen in the background running about issuing loud warning noises, we moved 8 chickens to the box in the garage. Glen had hung a heat lamp over this box.
Once the chicks had food and water with them in the box, we resumed chasing chicks around the front lawn. In our focus on catching chicks, we didn't notice their mother's absence - it was only when Glen went to the box to deposit a couple more chicks that he discovered that Mum had flown into the box and was calmly attending to her chicks. Through this and many other things we've observed in the past few days, she has earned our utmost respect!
At this point, we had 11 chicks. During the first chicken scurry, Glen saw one go under the fence to the backyard, so Jasmine and I went to retrieve it. He also found something else near the fence which I'll talk about later. OK, now we're up to 12 chicks. One more under the shrubbery and two on the other side of the porch. We are at 14. We searched around the front yard in vain for Number 15, attempted to recruit Jasmine's noise, with me mistaking every bird noise in the neighbourhood as a chick's cheep (an aside: the park a mile away from us is designated by UNESCO as one of the most significant migratory points in North America so there are a lot of bird noises around here right now)
After reluctantly agreeing that we were unlikely to find Number 15, we started to move the box with Mum and her chicks from the garage. Wait, was that a cheep? No. Yes, it is. We were so happy when we realized Number 15's coordinates. Interestingly, at less than a week of age, Number 15 knows a lot about protecting oneself from potential predators.
Rule #1: Stay quiet and make noise ONLY when Mum is heard clucking nearby.
Rule #2: Dive under leaves and stay absolutely still, even when the predator is rustling the leaves around you, trying to find you.
Once the entire family was reunited, calm was restored.
Dear fellow fowl. Today I arrived in poulet prison unexpectedly. You wouldn't believe how I got here...
So, what's the other big news? We may have a repeat performance... This is what Glen saw in a hidden nook near the fence during our search for the last of the chicks.
Yes, you saw right. More eggs!
That likely belong to another hen who visits regularly
More pictures tomorrow, including some chick action shots.
The question is: is he being an attentive father, or does he want to eat these chicks? We're not sure. However he is keeping very close company with the hen mentioned in yesterday's posting. Suburban chicken finds the parading of his new hen hussie in front of the chicks and their mother to be in very poor taste.
