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Exploding Hens
Jan. 3rd, 2012 05:07 pm
This is me. This is me at age approximately 17, holding three hazardous hens who are liable to explode at any minute.
This breed of chicken is high-energy, tough, and used to fending for themselves. We got this batch when they were a week or two old, and they already didn't care to be handled. We'd handled their predecessors from day one, and they were relatively tame. These ladies were feral.
I cherished them anyway, and had a habit of bringing one or more of them in the house after school.
Miss Calico, one of their predecessors, had been incredibly tame despite some of her wild ways -- coming when called, sitting agreeably and reading with me, submitting (with some fussing and grumbling, but no hard feelings) to being dressed up, on the agreement that she got plenty of treats.
These ladies had no such willingness to cooperate. They accepted snacks, pecking their share of my soup out of my spoon as I ate, but they did not particularly enjoy being held or brought in the house. When set on the floor, instead of wandering around and pecking at things, they would sit, "frozen", until suddenly they would "explode", squawking and flapping and shrieking, in the direction of the nearest exit -- usually one of the big picture windows. Of course, glass being glass, they wouldn't get outside, but they would continue to yell and flap until someone grabbed them and restrained them.
They were lovely, but in no way house pets.
