Us Weird Girls

I wasn't going to bother to name the chickens because A. They are chickens. and B. I couldn't really tell them apart. But this particular hen probably needs a name.

She just a part of the anonymous group until she lost her best friend about 7 weeks ago. From the get-go, our chickens had split themselves into the "cool kids", the main group of five and the "weird girls", this hen and one of the black ones. They left their coop in the morning and went completely separate ways until returning to the coop at night.

And then this hen's best friend died of some sort of chicken disease. Whatever it was killed her quickly and by the time I realized she was sick, it was too late (and yes at one point there was a hen wrapped in a towel living in a box on my porch).

Her best friend, this gold hen, truly mourned if ever a chicken can be said to mourn. She spent probably a week just searching and searching the yard for her friend, making a weird, sad clucking sound that I haven't heard a chicken make before or since. When she finally gave up looking, she became a lot less adventurous and rather than roam the yard like the rest of the hens, she stuck pretty close to the garden and the house.

But in recent weeks, she seems to have made up her mind about who her new "flock mates" will be...and it's not the other hens. Apparently she has decided that humans make fine friends and if we are outside, she is right there behind us. She'll follow us anywhere and venture further afield than any other chicken does as long as we are leading her. If you sit down, she scratches in the area around you--relaxed and content that she has a companion again.

In the last week or so, she has also been letting us pick up her without a fuss. If you walk up to her, she just waits for you to grab her and then will happily sit on your lap and "chicken chatters" while you hold her or rub her under her wings. It's odd how she just decided we were "hers" one day but I can't deny that I rather enjoy petting a hen!

And so it is that Evie and I let this hen join a new flock of "weird girls". smile emoticon