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Look At Me!



What happens is this...

...the bantams descend their tree and march down to the courtyard to stand at the back door and demand breakfast. I emerge from the back door, go into the laundry and scoop one pink seaside bucket full of layers pellets from a bag. I walk up to the middle garden, bantams hot on my heels. I scatter their breakfast. There is a lot of appreciative chuckling.

I continue onwards to Nancy’s house which is at the far end of the top garden, let her out, and scatter some food for her. Within a minute, Magnus Cockerel and Tootsie Pseudo-Cockerel appear. Now, when a chicken finds food they make this excitable chuckling noise which is basically them saying, ‘I’ve found food!! Aren’t I clever? Look, it’s amazing food! Come and join me!!’ And it entices other hens in their locality to join their gang for breakfast. It’s a flock thing.

So what happens is Magnus will start chuckling over a few bits of food, and then Tootsie will start chuckling over a few bits of food about three feet away, and all the while Nancy stands between them engaged in her own breakfast, thank you very much, and wholly unimpressed by the posturing of Cock 1 and Cock 2. The chuckling from both chaps grows in frequency, urgency and volume until Nancy decides to walk off and leave them to it. This is what I like about Nancy - she is very much her own girl. Power to the independent lady hen!

Basically, pretty much every morning Magnus and Tootsie have this attention seeking ‘chuckle off’ and it gets them nowhere at all. It entertains me enormously.

I’ve attached a post-breakfast video clip so you can say ‘Hello’ to the chicken family, such that it is in all its weirdness. Apologies for the dullness of picture - it was filmed just after 8 a.m on a grey and cloudy middle-of-the-Winter day in the West Midlands of England. What do you expect?


Comments

Vera said…
Nice to see your flock in action, and the ladder still in situ after Christmas. I still have my sunbed in the courtyard but it is upside now, rendered thus by horrendous winds.
Anyway, looking forward to more vids, happy writing! Vx
8 January 2020 at 13:43
Denise said…
The ladder is there to make the infantile point of ‘I’m not putting it away because I didn’t get it out.’ I’m such a child! But your sun bed, Vera, will be easy to flip over again when the sun reappears! Hurrah!
8 January 2020 at 19:34
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