Most mothers and daughters have a falling out now and then, even in the chicken world. Sarah and Ella have been living in comparative harmony since they hatched out two chicks together but yesterday I heard shrieking from the woodshed and arrived to find Ella attacking her mother. Roosters are nasty fighters but hens can be even worse and Sarah was terrified so the only solution was to grab Ella and put her back in the big house with the other chooks. I was worried she'd fret at losing her baby but when I let her out today with the others she just wandered off to find a worm and didn't make any attempt to go and see her offspring. A real piece of work and a Jeremy Kyle show in the making.
The other chicks have an overprotective mum in Gine who loves to fly up and attack my hand when I attempt to put their feed dish in their cage. Then she clucks and fusses, breaking up bread for them or else crumbling their mash into even smaller pieces. And yet she treads on them without looking or else gets so excited when I put their feed in that when she scratches in the dish she sends chicks flying in all directions. However the babies soon learn to stand out of the way of their mother's wayward feet. For such small fragile creatures they have a remarkable sense of self preservation.
Gypsy squealed at the front door this morning and thinking she wanted in I opened it to find a wet half dead waxeye lying on the doormat. I scooped it up, put it in a box and shut in the dark and warm healing safety of the hot water cupboard. An hour later I was able to release it back outside where it flew away hopefully wiser about the perfidity and unscrupulousness of cats.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment