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| Whitey the Trick Chicken |
Good Morning All. My last post I was sick and sad but God met me in the grief and sadness and I am feeling better. I have been up since 3am sneezing so I decided I would tell you the story about Whitey's Adventure this week.
Last spring, Will bought me 20 baby hens. The store told us there were 10 California Whites, 5 black sexlinks, and 5 red sexlinks. I think the store did not have a clue about what they were selling because I have 9 beautiful golden chickens who have sweet dispositions and are great layers and are very social. I have Whitey who was part of the group of supposed California White's but she was more white and had an eagle looking head. I now know that she is an Americauna. The black hens were actually sexlinks but the red sex links are Egyptian chickens called Fayums I think.
Whitey is my only hen of the mistaken breeds that lays green eggs. She is also the only one of my hens that lives in the backyard with the dogs...oops dog...DeeDee. This last several weeks, my hens have been venturing out of my yard and pasture and have been playing in the street. Sadly, 3 hens have been ran over so I had to take corrective action. My chickens have been in lock down in their hen house. I told them that unhappy is better than dead. Whitey doesn't live in the hen house though, she lays her eggs there when the doors are open in the morning. She is always there waiting outside the door eager to get inside the nesting box. This week when I put my other hens on lockdown, that meant that Whitey could not get in and lay her egg. This development completely discombobulated her. The first day, she followed me everywhere and kept standing outside the hen house. She came into the garage and tried to lay an egg up above the wood box. She got up on the shelves in the tack room and tried to lay an egg. It was very like the story of the 3 bears for Whitey that day. The garage was too busy, the tack room shelf was too hard and the barn was just too strange. I felt so sad for her that I went foraging for something that I could use to make a nest for her. There were some buckets that my Dad had quite cleverly converted into chicken nests. I put new hay in it and put it up on the shelf where Whitey nests at night. That night, I went to check on Whitey and she was not on her roost. The hay in the nest had not been disturbed. I looked everywhere for her. She is my favorite chicken (but that's our private secret, the others cannot know this). All night long I kept waking up and thinking about Whitey. Nellie, my dog, and I took a flashlight 4 or 5 times in the night and looked all over the backyard, in the little barn, in the big barn but no Whitey. There has been a hawk terrorizing us and I was afraid that perhaps it had captured Whitey. I was very sad. In the morning, I went looking for her again. I looked in all the same places but she was missing. I thought I would re-check the backyard. I decided to call her name just in case she was in hiding. I called and then heard a tiny chit chatter....a little warbling brck, brck, brck. I looked around and could not find her. I followed the sound and realized the sound was coming from deep in the back of the bucket but the hay was pulled up so I could not see into the bucket. I called again and my silly chicken worked her head through the hay and poked her little head out looking at me like "here I am silly Mom!". I checked the bucket after she had climbed out to have her morning constitutional and there was a beautiful green egg.
I had to share, I hope you are laughing at my goofiness. I am going to bake some more yummies today. I am going to post recipes later after I have created all that I intend to. Have a wonderful day.
Tracy
