Chicky Girl

Two years ago, this chicken made herself an integral part of our farm life.

She was just a part of the anonymous group of our initial 8 hens until she lost her best friend. From the get-go, our first 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 after a week or two, she seemed to have made up her mind about who her new "flock mates" would be...and it wasn't the other hens. She decided that humans make fine friends and thereafter when we went outside, she was 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.

She even lets 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. Every single morning, she comes running as we get into the car and we share a bit of breakfast with her and every night when we come home, she does the same and Evie and I usually scrounge something up to give her (we have both been known to save a bit of our lunch to bring home specifically for the chicken).

Right now, Chicky Girl has decided that my tote of barn rags is the most perfect spot to hatch a clutch of eggs and so we are letting her--after all, who doesn't want more of the world's best chicken?

I am pretty happy that Evie and I let this hen join our little flock of "weird girls"