Because the little girls are fed primarily a diet of scratch (corn and mixed grains) and lay pellets (whatever it is, it's good for them) with some oyster shell thrown in and leftovers whenever there are some, it's easy to forget that chickens are omnivores and will also eat meat. Watching the girls peacefully pecking for grain and taking sun baths (when there's sunshine), one doesn't think of them as killers. Yesterday I moved one of the waterers in the hen house and a mouse and I came eye to eye. In that second of immobility while we both said, "Ohmigosh!," a hen darted in faster than a mongoose on a cobra and had that mouse nailed and dead! The hen ran outside with her trophy and the flock took after her. It was like watching a miniature version of a National Geographic special about Mongols on horseback playing polo with a sheep as the hen ran the pen with the mouse held high and the rest of the girls trying to take it away. It was a pretty dramatic way to start the day!
The weather now is glorious...bluebird days if ever there were. I got to do some outdoor chores, and didn't light the woodstove at all. Sheila and I are still ladies-in-waiting.
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Yay for sun - hooray for the hunter chick, and I bet Sheila wants it EVEN more than you do! Hope your bluebird days continue and that the critters adapt to man's weird manipulation of the sun!
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