web analytics

Chicken drama

That bird on the other side of the mesh is Vita, the most beautiful chicken in the whole parish. She is also, no doubt about it, the very bottom of the pecking order. All the other chickens (including the tiny black one in the corner) pecked and belly-bumped and fought their quarter to claim their spot in the poultry hierarchy. It’s a somewhat fluid thing, the pecking order — except for Lucia (top hen) and Vita (bottom hen).

Vita never tried. She never fought. She gave up from day one. I looked out the window one day to see her lying motionless, beak-down in the grass, the top two chickens taking turns giving her a good hard peck. I though she’d died and they were trying to revive her, but no…she was just lying there letting them demonstrate her position on the social scale.

Sometimes, she goes off by herself for a little wallow in the sunshine, solo. Although these days, her role is so firmly established, nobody much bothers to give her a hard time any more. She’s kind of Invisible Vita, bottom chicken. She breaks my heart, that chicken.

Until the new babies. They’re in their own run in the daytime now, so the other chickens can see them and get used to them, but not get at them. Oh, Vita is very interested in the babies. Yes indeed. She’ll stare at the chicks for a few minutes, then bang give the mesh a peck and make them jump. I think Vita doesn’t want to be bottom hen any more. But the piebald, Maggie, and the little black bird, Coco, are feisty little so-and-sos and won’t give up without a fight.

It’s going to be an interesting Summer.

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 13, 2013, 11:31 pm

I promised you chicken posting, and here it is. Feel free to bitch about politics, if you’d rather. I’m still incandescent with rage. Oh, and we’re going to arm Syrian rebels now I see! So, fuck me!

Here’s another chicken. Vita doesn’t work well in black and white, so this is Vita eating spaghetti in the grass:


Comment from Paula Douglas
Time: June 14, 2013, 12:05 am

She *is* beautiful. Who’s that in the background?

Animals will eat the weirdest shit. A friend of mine has an African gray parrot who loves mashed potatoes–and chicken, which is really kind of disgusting–and several of my cats like Cheetos and those Biskoff cookies.

Maybe you can start taking bets on how long it will be before the degenerate savages we’re randomly siding with in Syria start using the weapons we’re going to shower them with against us. I say 18 months.


Comment from Randy Rager
Time: June 14, 2013, 12:07 am

You may end up with Vita as top bird. Wierder things have happened.


Comment from drew458
Time: June 14, 2013, 12:13 am

I never ever thought I’d put this in writing, but …
That is a good looking chicken.

keep your rage bottled, and chicken blog every day. Oh, and do Your Weekly Banjo. And Badgerisms. It’s why we love you.

18 months Paula? Try 18 hours. Put a No Fly Zone in there and find out where all those 20,000 missing MANPAD anti-aircraft missiles H&O fed to teh Rebels (aka Al-Q) in Libya and were mysteriously lost went to. When our jets start falling out of the sky. Ahem. Because we HAD to get involved in Libya … because of … why??


Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: June 14, 2013, 12:42 am

It twas chickens who invented the whole ‘pecking order’ meme, and chicken eating pasgetti in a gif would be fascinating.

Oh, and don’t worry about Syria that jam is about already made. It’s Turkey you want to be eyeballing.


Comment from QuasiModo
Time: June 14, 2013, 12:52 am

We used to have a Budgie that we let fly around the house…she’d land on the edge of your plate and eat chicken…cannibals!


Comment from PatAZ
Time: June 14, 2013, 1:03 am

I think Vita is the prettiest chicken of them all. May she one day rule them all. Are you still getting a goodly supply of eggs?

I thought Obuma would keep drawing lines in the sand. We don’t need to spend more money on our enemies.


Comment from Pablo
Time: June 14, 2013, 1:57 am

Oh, and we’re going to arm Syrian rebels now I see! So, fuck me!

You say that as though we haven’t already been doing it for a year or more. You could even ask Chris Stevens except, well, you know.


Comment from Deborah
Time: June 14, 2013, 2:40 am

Here’s a small diversion for you, Stoaty. It’s Flannery O’Conner’s essay on living with a peacock. It will make you double+glad that you have sweet chickens.

http://holidaymag.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/living-with-a-peacock-by-flannery-oconnor-september-1961/


Comment from mojo
Time: June 14, 2013, 3:05 am

Chicken purty. I want to pet her. Please, Gorge?


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: June 14, 2013, 3:39 am

Seeing as how the occupants and workers in the White House and on Capitol Hill are now on record giving arms, aid, and comfort to the Syrian “rebels” who are now on record as loyal to Al-Qaeda, an officially recognized terrorist group with whom we’ve been fighting now for more than 10 years, then shouldn’t all those pols be carted off to Gitmo? Or even better, lets send some drones down the whole length of Pennsylvania Avenue.


Comment from Oldcat
Time: June 14, 2013, 4:09 am

Don’t worry. I’m sure they will be as crappy at helping AlQuaeda as they are at everything else except getting elected.


Comment from SCOTTtheBADGER
Time: June 14, 2013, 6:21 am

My word, that IS a handsome chicken!


Comment from Oceania
Time: June 14, 2013, 9:48 am

You are not Cock Fighting Again Sweasel?


Comment from Randy Rager
Time: June 14, 2013, 7:17 pm

Speaking of Turkey, what REALLY worries me right now is Russia aiding that twit Erdogan putting down the unrest in exchange for free passage of ground troops to aid their client state Syria.

If that doesn’t scare you, you never read Revelations.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: June 14, 2013, 9:20 pm

drew458: 20,000 missing MANPADs… in Libya

Those were in Qaddafi’s arsenals. He had huge piles of stuff lying around.

There are suggestions that the Benghazi affair started with supplying Qaddafi’s leftovers to Syrian rebels.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 14, 2013, 9:42 pm

Thank you for that link, Deborah. I enjoyed it muchly.

I was traumatized by a peacock when I was a girl. He used to chase me around my mother’s friend’s garden. And a dog killed him, Mother hand him stuffed, and hung him in the dining room. Facing me. Brrrr.

Fortunately, we hardly ever ate in the dining room.

Write a comment

(as if I cared)

(yeah. I'm going to write)

(oooo! you have a website?)


Beware: more than one link in a comment is apt to earn you a trip to the spam filter, where you will remain -- cold, frightened and alone -- until I remember to clean the trap. But, hey, without Akismet, we'd be up to our asses in...well, ass porn, mostly.


<< carry me back to ol' virginny