October 28, 2010
Thursday
Goldie and Ellie were having a war today. Ellie was in the box first and Goldie wanted in there and was quite irritated. She was fussing and had fluffed up every feather on her body to make herself look more menacing. Ellie was having none of it and each time Goldie would try to enter the box, Ellie would peck at her. The last time, Ellie grabbed hold of Goldie’s comb and started pulling on it to much squawking from Goldie. I intervened and said, “Enough Ellie!” Goldie, her ego hurt, was picked up and coddled by me, where she laid in my arms and murmured her woes as I petted her. She is a silly little thing, in many ways, almost the “ideal” chicken and feisty for all the few ounces that she weighs!!!
As Ellie got ready to lay, she was like Cleopatra with an entourage around her encouraging her on. For all the pecking Ellie does to Goldie, Farrah jumped up and right into the nest with Ellie and laid down next to her, two large hens cram-jammed into a bantam size nesting box. Not a word of protest from Ellie, testament to their friendship. Eventually, Farrah figured out it was not an ideal situation and went and laid in the box across from Ellie (Hawkeye’s box), but that was not close enough still, so she got up and squashed herself into the narrow strip of wood between the two boxes and laid down there....waiting for the main event.
Then both Hawkeye and Chanel jumped up as well, Hawkeye standing on top of the box outside of Ellie’s nest, Chanel on the bottom platform, Raven in her box underneath Ellie. Farrah would turn her head upside down and look down into Raven’s box to see what she was doing. It was a funny site. Eventually Ellie laid her egg and the party broke up.
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