Chicken Sense.

When I was a kid, if you called someone a 'bird-brain,' it meant that they had very little common sense. Well, as far as I'm concerned, I think birds have more good sense than we give them credit for.

This evening after dinner, I went outside to lock up the coop. With the sun going down earlier these days, by 6:30 at night the chickens are usually in the coop and waiting for me to lock the gate. I went down the porch steps tonight and saw that the chickens were all huddled up underneath the bushes by the house...... very unusual at that time of the evening.

I walked towards the coop, to see if maybe Gatsby had curled up for a nap inside the coop... but he was on the back deck and nowhere near the coop. As I got to the gate of the coop, there was a pile of feathers heaped in a circle right near the spot where the chickens walk to get from the yard into the coop. It looked like a hawk had swooped down and captured one of the sparrows or barn swallows...... the only thing left of the poor little bird were all those feathers, and the bird's bloody beak was in the center of the pile. My chickens must have seen that, and wouldn't walk over or even around the remains of the little bird.

I took the broom and swept away all the feathers...... as I did that, the chickens were just watching me from the other side of the fence. When all the feathers were away from the coop gate, PittyPat and Audrey and Prissy walked into the coop and flew up on the roosting bar. Scarlett stayed in the yard, just watching me holding the broom. I put the broom away, thinking she didn't like the looks of that. Still, she wouldn't walk to the coop.... and then she walked back towards the porch and went underneath the bushes again.

Well, we can't have that..... Into the house I went and I came out with the yellow bowl that I use to hold all the food scraps that I give to the chickens. The bowl was empty, but Scarlett didn't know that. I held the bowl out to show Scarlett what I had in my hand, and she came out from underneath the bushes and sat down near my feet-- her signal that she wants to be picked up. And that's exactly what I did........ I put the bowl down on the grass and picked Scarlett up in my arms, and I carried that red hen all the way back to the coop as she coo-ed in my arms. Such sweet little sounds come from the hens at the end of their day.

I was sorry about the little bird that was eaten by the hawk, but of course I was happy that the hawk caught one of the countless sparrows and not one of my four hens. I'm sure my chickens must have either seen the hawk attack the little bird, or maybe they heard the screeching. It just amazes me that they would not walk across the pile of feathers outside the coop.