Royal Neighbors

I love chickens.  Always have. My grandma loved birds too.  She had 25 or so that followed her to the mailbox.  She called them the “Royal Neighbors.”  We just stand & watch them scratch and peck and their quiet little "chortlles" make me smile.  You should see the commotion when one finds a particularly juicy caterpillar -- the race is on!  

Every time we open the back door they all come running. Of course, I think they are glad to see me, but they really hope for some table scraps.

 

This winter was hard on them.  They were only laying 1 or 2 eggs a week.  At zero degrees, we hung a heat lamp in their little house and left it on for four days straight.   On the night of the fourth day they didn’t go into the house to sleep.  Just imagine Bob and me going round and round the house trying to catch them while we slipped on the ice!  They seemed dazed from lack of sleep – apparently they had been awake for 4 straight days at this point.

But, the next day there were FIVE eggs in the nest.  Maybe we fooled them into thinking spring had arrived.  What a wonderful breakfast for us the next day!