Chickens Part 2……

Chickens Part 2

****Before I go on my rant about chickens, I’d like to share these adorable pictures of chickens eating a leftover birthday cake.  Enjoy!****

Before getting to know Shangrila’s rooster, I had only hated one other animal in my life.  It was my Mom’s cat Cici, who was basically my sibling rival for my Mom’s attention growing up.  I would pull her tail, she’d wait on chairs to swat at my head with her (clawless) paws.  If she was in my Mom’s lap, I wanted to be in my Mom’s lap and visa versa.  I swear, that cat was purring in triumph each time she lay between my Mom and I on the bed.

I hated that cat.

However, I feel a new type of hatred for Gary’s rooster, one born from fear.  I’ve been calling it his attack rooster.  This thing follows you around, acting like he doesn’t have a care in the world but the second you turn your back…. You hear the scratchy pitter-patter of gravel under his spurs and that thing is coming for you.  It’s only really gone after me once, while I was leading my horse Mickey back from a training session in the round pen.  Out of nowhere this thing puffed up his feathers and started going for my ankles.  I had to let Mickey go because the rooster was spooking him, something I was loath to do with such a new horse.  While the bird attacked me, I kept kicking it (really just pushing it away with my foot forcefully, I didn’t want to hurt it (yet)) and yelling like it could understand me.  “What are you doing?”  “What is wrong with you.”  “I am going to kill you!”

Finally, I jumped up on a wagon and the stupid bird bobbed his head a couple times before wandering off.  I collected my horse, who had run back to the road and broken one of his reins, and carefully returned to the barn area.  My second run in with our attack rooster happened the other day, while I was filling a water tank to bring to a far pasture and fill up a water bucket for the horses there.  We haven’t been letting the chickens out as much since there is a dachshund across the street that has been killing them.  The owner hasn’t been able to get his hands on his dog for months now, and the thing is basically wild.  But we did let them out recently, otherwise they start to get violent with each other.  I understand perfectly, I’d get violent if I was stuck in a cage all day too.

Well, I was sitting in the gator waiting for the tank to fill and that dang rooster was watching me, waiting for his chance.  Gary and Glenn, a guy who has been helping us lately, pulled up in the other gator to pick up a pressure washer.  I exited from the opposite side of the gator from the rooster, and as I say, “that thing is just waiting to attack me,” it sprang over the gator, and I hear the scritch scratch of claws on gravel.  I ran squealing like a little girl and leaped into the back of Gary and Glenn’s gator, barely in time to avoid the roosters spurs digging into the backs of my calves.  It hit the edge of the gator, but I was safe.  Safe from the rooster, at least, not safe from Gary and Glenn’s hilarious laughter at the sight of me cowering from a bird.

Don’t worry future guests; we keep the chickens in while down at the barn getting ready to ride.  None of our guests have had any bad run-ins with Mr. Attack Rooster.  He’s gorgeous to look at, but I prefer to keep my distance.  Although if he’s ever in the way while I’m driving my car, we may be having rooster for dinner.