Poor girls are cold! They are not big fans of the snow, this bunch. Normally, I open the coop door and a loud commotion ensues, all wanting to be the first to run off into the green grasses. But with these first few snow falls(which came very late this year) one, maybe two heads poke out to check the status of that nasty white stuff. Then it’s a very dainty promenade from their coop to my doorstep. If they had hands they would be hiking up their skirts, and bonnets or parasols would be a must. The last one out is our very own little Napoleon. He’s a little bantam boy. The only bantam amongst a dozen big girls. We ordered six bantams this year and all were roosters! That is far too much attitude and the girls were exhausted from all the harassment. So our kind friends who had a couple hundred hens and but one very busy bloke agreed to take the remaining five. Plenty of fish in that sea! Turns out that one of the adopted roosters fancied himself an ass and spends his days on the shoulders their donkey. But back to Napoleon. He is certainly a little cock with a big attitude. However, it is all attitude. As I said before, he is the last one out of the coop in any foul weather and only after all the girls are well on their way, to which he finds himself alone. This he does not like. He tip-toes down the ramp and when he reached the snowy edge he squawks and ruffles his feather as if mustering up some courage. Then he leaps and flaps, half flying, half running, like a puddle jumper, trying his best to avoid touching that nasty wet stuff until he catches up to the girls. Once back with his harem, he fluffs himself up big, belts out a song and side steps his way to the girls attempting a covert mount. I have yet to see him succeed. They are much bigger and as a group seem to have made a pact with one another to keep the little guy in his place. I am convinced the girls devise many a conspiratorial ruse just to ruffle his tenuous role as master of the coop. I have observed the group running to a freshly scattered patch of scratch, little Napoleon of course the last to know and the last to arrive. As they cluck and buck contentedly the girls have been witnessed slowly migrating away from the scratch, around the corner and out os sight of poor Napoleon. When he comes up from his eager pecking and finds himself alone, panic ensues. He paces in circles, bobbing his head this way and that as he calls out to the girls a sad whimper. “Cock-a-doodle-doo?” I can only imagine them around the corner of the barn giggling!
I did not think when we started chickens five years ago that they would be so entertaining nor become such a part of our family. Their personalities are undeniable. They have been the inspiration for much creativity from holiday cards, painting, home movies(we had one rooster named marble who crowed on command), and even my son has begun writing a cartoon series about them in the style of Spy vs. Spy. He calls it Chicken Vs. Chicken in which two enemy chickens are continually planting bombs in one another’s nests, eggs, etc. Not to mention that free range, organically raised fresh eggs from the back yard are not to be beat!
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